Dr Everdeen and Ms Snowdeen
by Kazakh Doom
Summary: For the most part, Peeta's happily married to Katniss. But he soon learns that there's a whole new side of his wife, the Girl on Fire, that dangerously reminds him more of Buttercup...
1. Chapter 1

Ah, the Appalachians. Ah, the nostalgia...

This is District 12 of Panem. And for the most part, Appalachia still looks the same. Alas, armed androids keep flying over the land.

The androids patrol the highways and the railways, looking for people to help and crime to stop. Now don't you dare panic; these droids work for President Paylor's administration. Snow and his family are long-dead, as are Coin and... Wait-did Coin ever reproduce in life?

Hospitals, clinics, and med schools have taken over District 12. Most of them are AIs. Some dare think of them as "sentient buildings." It's still a work in progress...but then, every economy always is.

There are still coal mines...just not as many as there were under Snow's leadership-for those still alive who'd dare call it that. (Personally, I would've expected all the coal mines of my time to have stopped producing coal sometime after the end of the 21st century...)

But for all we know or care, of course, Katniss Everdeen kills Coin in the late 21st century. And you're probably wondering what happened after that, so here we go.

This is Peeta Mellark. His memories have recovered very much since his captivity in the Revolution. And he's baking for one of the hospital AIs. Alas, the AI can't tell, by itself, whether or not he's good at his job; AIs lack taste buds.

And naturally, hospital cafeteria food is notorious for how awful it tastes. So it seems unlikely that Mellark will win an employee of the month award anytime soon.

But as he'll soon find out, those are the least of his life's problems. He is, after all, happily married to the Girl on Fire.

And I DON'T mean Alicia Keys. Alas, by the time this story is at midpoint, Sweet Peeta will be wishing she was Alicia Keys.

As hard as it is for Peeta to believe, his shift is almost up. It's time for him to go home, check on the wife, fall on the bed, and snore until the shack unravels to rubble.

Ah, home. It may look like another shitty shotgun house...but to at least two people Peeta knows of, including himself, it's home away from the old Hunger Games.

Exhausted, Peeta climbs the front steps to the front door. It's a tall, tall house. Thankfully, though, the front steps are about the height of Peter Dinklage...assuming he's even in Panem's history books. That swing would look just about comfy for him and Katniss...if only he felt achieved enough to share it with her one of these nights.

Buttercup, Katniss's late sister's cat, is loafing on the welcome mat. The hair goes up on his back, and he hisses at Peeta.

Peeta stops, and stares. This is unusual for Buttercup. He usually feels more secure around him than around Katniss. Nonetheless, it seems that getting into the house is going to be harder tonight than before.

Great; as if Peeta's job wasn't impossible enough. But then, that's not to say that Katniss is always an easy wife to have...

An eerie breeze blows. There's just something about it... For some reason, home doesn't feel the way it usually does when Peeta comes home from work. But Peeta mustn't dwell on it; nine out of ten omens are illusory, after all.

Don't quote Peeta on that, though. Most women bail on men who use that as their pickup line.

An eccentric wind chime hangs in front of the other window to the front porch. It's shaped like a hog, as it hangs from its back legs, prepared for slaughter. A string hangs from its chest. Peeta sighs, smiles, and pulls the string, one last time, for kicks.

The wind chime sounds like a hog being tortured, of course. Katniss sometimes uses this as a means of boar-hunting from her front porch.

If Peeta had his way, District 12 would have banned hog-hunting from front porches years ago. But in at least one way, it seems that Panem loves the Girl on Fire more than Peeta does.

Peeta goes in the house. He'd hate to be on the front porch if a wild boar in rut hears that wind chime.

It's dark inside. The boards in the floor creak under his feet. The windows are open. The eerie breeze flows in like a flood.

Something feels wrong. Not that it's more like Katniss to be more nurturing whenever Peeta comes home from work, understand, but...sure would be nice, he thinks, if she did it just once...

He stops when he gets to the dining room. His heart freezes in his chest. There's a vase on it. And there's a bouquet of white roses in it!

Peeta closes in on the vase, dreading the worst. They'd better not smell like what he thinks. If they do... But this isn't possible, right? All of Snow's children died in the last Hunger Games. Or, so the short-lived Coin administration told the press at that time...

Nonsense; Paylor would never let something like this happen. Would she?

Floorboards creak behind Peeta. He freezes. Whoever's behind him sounds heavier than him. In terror, he slowly turns around, and looks.

A light is flipped on in the hallway. Peeta screams. He screams again. And he screams a third time...

Katniss is in the buff. She's bleached her hair-either that or she's evolved into a Norsewoman in the past twenty-four hours. (Days in Panem are still twenty-four hours long, aren't they? I once saw something on TV that says that the days get longer as the Earth's relationship with the sun gets older...)

"Hi, Peeta," Katniss says, smiling. "Want to play?"

Peeta tries to shake his head-but he can barely move. He finds himself both frightened and sexually attracted to his naked wife at the same time.

"Katniss?! What the... Are you stoned?! Where the fuck did you get those roses?!"

She giggles. "Who's Katniss?" She creeps towards him. He backs away. "My name is Katlanna." She flaps her hair, like Farrah Fawcett, after she says this. "Katlanna Snowdeen! So, has the wife put you on guard duty at her house while she's out of town?"

She's flirting with him. It's as if she knows his name...but doesn't know her own.

"What?! No, I'm not on guard duty..."

"PERFECT," Katlanna beams. "We can do whatever we want to in here then!"

Peeta starts to criticize her more-but then she charges him. He runs around the house a few times before she leaps out from behind the staircase, and hisses like Buttercup. Peeta screams. He hides behind the umbrella stand while Katlanna leaps out at him every time he peeks around one side of it.

"You should really take those clothes off," Katlanna hisses, while rubbing her hands together. "You could get hurt wearing them for too long!"

"Yeah, and you could get hurt not wearing any! Katniss, what the fuck is going on with you?!"

Buttercup slithers in, and rubs on Katlanna's bare legs. Katlanna smiles, picks him up, holds him close to her rack, and caresses his fur maternally. She says things in baby talk to him. She rubs her face in his fur.

Now Peeta KNOWS something's wrong with Katniss. She and Buttercup hate each other.

"Yeah, how ya doin', kitty-poo?" Katlanna giggles. "You feel famished. What do they feed you up here? Mm, not mice I hope. Mice are funner to play with than to eat, if you ever ask me." She looks up from the cat. "What's his...name?"

She looks around. Peeta is gone. She peers out the biggest window. A small man is running off into the forest.

Katlanna beams. She drops the cat, and runs to get a few things-but not clothes, or brown hair dye, as Peeta would hope.

Peeta runs. He runs as if Katlanna were right behind him. Alas, it's a big forest. And the terrain is hardly stable.

He slips before long, and rolls down a slope. The slope feels like it has no end. He tries to grab something, but nothing stays put for him. With luck, he won't be dead when and if he stops.

He hits a rock, and bounces off of it. He hits another rock, and bounces off of it. He hits another rock, and bounces off of it. He falls through several trees' canopies, but can't grab onto a stable part of any tree.

At long last, Peeta lands on a coyote, and stops. At first he's relieved. But then he realizes what he's lying on. He rolls over, and takes a look.

The coyote's dead. It died from the impact of Peeta's body.

He was a male. Peeta might've just made several widows out of a single fall.

Peeta hears a scary growl. He looks around, and acknowledges the source. Two boars stand, in the dim light of dusk, facing him. Their eyes glow red.

Peeta panics, and runs. The boars chase him. Peeta KNEW pulling that wind chime's string was a bad call. He just KNEW it. Katniss should get it taken down and destroy it. He keeps trying to tell her that that wind chime is a lawsuit waiting to happen, and now it's become a fucking health hazard-one that he's now running for his life from, for the first time since the Revolution!

Peeta doesn't look back. He just keeps running down the same ravine-which gets deeper and deeper as he goes along. Katniss is stealthy. Peeta will soon learn that Katlanna is stealthy in ways that make Katniss look clumsy.

The ravine dead-ends. Peeta looks around. He tries to climb the cliff. He can't. He's trapped! And he's got two speeding boars who're about to maul him...!

One of the hogs falls dead behind the other. Katlanna rides the other, still in the buff, and still blonde. She takes a spear, and runs the boar through the neck while it's still running. The boar inadvertently does a somersault after its stabbing.

Katlanna hollers, flies off the boar's back, and lands in Peeta's arms. Peeta doesn't mean to save her-he means to save Katniss...who, hopefully, is still in that hot, blonde, feminine, busty, thick, scary female body, somewhere...

"Ah," she sighs seductively, "that little man of mine." She licks his neck. He screams every time she does. "He can't slay a boar worth a lick," she licks his neck again, and causes him to scream louder, "but at least he can sure pancake a coyote alpha when he falls!"

Peeta keeps screaming. He imagines his screams can be heard throughout Appalachia-but apparently not, since the local public-wherever they are, and however far away the nearest one is-sure isn't being prompt in responding to his distress signal.

"Yeah," Katlanna keeps licking Peeta's neck, "my man doesn't need no woman to pick him up! He just needs better pickup lines!"

"O KATNISS, WHERE ARE YOU?! I MISS YOU ALREADY! HELP! HELP! SOMEBODY! MY WIFE'S A...!"

Katlanna stands and cuts him off, by bathing his baby face in kisses. Peeta hardens...but does his best to overlook it.

They're back at the house. From outside, one can hear Peeta's shrill screams-as they once heard Prim Everdeen's screams for many years before her name was drawn for the Hunger Games.

At long last, Peeta's in the buff. Katlanna's atop him. She rubs her pussy back and forth over his abs, and rides his front side. She hollers, and bellows like a cow in heat. She's hurting Peeta's ears. She's beaten him in District 12's epic screaming contest.

Peeta falls asleep before she does. Soon, she's snoring atop him. Peeta doesn't remember, and has no idea, how he gets through this night without suffocating. He forgets to be more thankful that he wasn't mauled by wild boars.

In the night, Katlanna's hair gradually turns from blonde to brunette. And she gets slightly smaller.

She still snores, though. Aside from the body, that's one thing Katniss and Katlanna DO have in common...


	2. Chapter 2

Peeta sleeps late the next morning. Part of it is because how much Katlanna wore him out the previous night. The other part is fear of what more Katlanna will do to him if he's awake. But if she does, he sure hopes it's sex; last night's was AWESOME and EPIC.

Someone squeezes his scrotum. He yelps.

"Get up. You'll be late for work."

Peeta blinks his eyes. They're still blurry from sleep. Katniss is a brunette again! And she seems in dimmer spirits than before.

"Katniss? Is it really you?"

She chuckles. "What the fuck you talking about?! It's always been me. Now get up and get to work; this house doesn't run on faith...and neither does your hygiene, if I might add."

Peeta scoffs. His wife gets more stink complaints than he does.

Outside, Katniss is building a mousetrap. Or rather, that's what she calls it. Peeta would call it a contraption that tortures mice for ages before killing them. If anyone else didn't know any better, they'd say that Katniss was biased against mice...

Buttercup lies on the porch, purring and licking himself. Katniss tries to ignore it for as long as she can. But at long last, she pulls a machete out of an umbrella stand that contains enough machetes to equip a posse. She throws it, and the cat makes a disgusted sound and sprints away.

Okay, fine; it's not mice she's biased against, after all...

"You know," Peeta offers, coming outside, "mice are as smart as humans. It's like you're torturing our kindred spirits before killing them, and..."

"These mice are a scourge," Katniss grumbles. "So is Buttercup. And Buttercup sits around here WAY too much. It's about time we got something more suitable to replace him."

Peeta chuckles. "You know how stubborn that cat is. And he doesn't have anywhere else to go. Our nearest neighbor isn't..."

"I DON'T CARE," Katniss shouts. "Cats aren't the only means of killing mice, and it's about time I forgot about my sister! And Buttercup does WAY more than remind me of her. Now, if I recall correctly, MILA's got a job for you that she can't do herself-for some weird reason I'm not high-tech enough to understand."

Peeta is just glad Katniss is herself again. He creeps up behind her, and tries to hug her from behind...

"Go to work, Peeta!" Katniss shakes him off, and keeps working on the trap.

Peeta sighs, and does what she says. He swears that some days it feels like Katniss doesn't love him.

At work, he takes his lunch breaks with MILA's other employees. He likes them, but... Sometimes it feels like they only like him because he's married to the Girl on Fire. And if recent things between him and Katniss don't become really easy really soon, he could be barking up Divorce Tree, and when and if that happens, he'll soon be eating lunch alone...like the solitary kid he once hoped never to become.

They talk to him about how wonderful his wife is. His wife inspired a lot of them during the Revolution, and their lives have gotten SO much better after they realized they could be free from Snow's reign, and start jerking off to hot sex fantasies of the Girl on Fire in the buff, and declare their independence from fiances who they'd been pledging marriage to for years before...

At last, Peeta cuts them off, and tells them that he's been having problems with her. He tells them about the night before-as best he can, considering that he'd rather not have them know the details. Plus, they'd take too long to list, and this lunch break isn't infinite. MILA hates it when her slaves take long lunches, after all...

"Ah man, that sounds serious, Pete. You should bring her to MILA, and have her check her out."

One of the other guys shushes him. "You know how MILA feels when her slaves accuse her of being a lesiban behind her back!"

"She's an AI," a third one says. "She shouldn't be feeling anything!"

"Look," Peeta outlines. "So far, she's only done this just this one time. I won't take her to MILA before I know how serious this is. Tonight, she'll probably still be the same old cold-shouldered, mouse-torturing, clothed, brunette Katniss..."

Six hours later, Peeta's hanging upside down over a barrel of whiskey, in the buff, with a long stick tied to his back. He's almost sobbing.

Next to him, the two hogs and coyote from last night are hanging over their own separate whiskey barrels. They're lucky; they're already dead.

Katlanna Snowdeen is back. Her hair is blonde again, and she's back in the buff. She holds up a pistol, for Peeta to see. Peeta shivers...

Katlanna pulls the trigger. A flame burns from the muzzle.

At first, Peeta sighs with relief. But then Katniss sets the first hog's barrel of whiskey on fire...and Peeta remembers his troubles with the scarier half of...who should be his wife, but doesn't seem to remember that, for some weird reason.

When the hog's fire is lit, it severs a string. The hog falls. One end of its spit lands on something. The spit falls over, to where it's slowly turning.

Peeta shivers. He faced a lot of scary things in the Hunger Games and the Quarter Quell, but...he never imagined that his legacy would be his roasted long pork feeding his wife.

How could she do this to him? She HATED Snow...didn't she?

She travels slowly. Peeta wishes she'd hurry up-not that he's ambitious about dying, or anything...

She smiles, and studies the barrel the coyote's hanging over. She smiles, rubs the poor dog's brisket one last time, and lights his whiskey.

Now Peeta's whimpering like a dog. Nearby, Buttercup hisses angrily-as if he mistook Peeta for an actual dog.

"Now, now, calm down, kitty-kitty," Katlanna smiles. "If one of those real awful things was nearby, you wouldn't even be out here to observe."

She stops by the second hog's barrel, and looks at the hog. Peeta watches.

She looks it up and down, for a long time, and sighs. A nourishing breeze blows by the shotgun house, and her hair all around her face. And, she smiles. Peeta's half-relieved...

She starts to walk past the hog. Peeta almost sighs with relief.

At the last second, Katlanna lights the hog's booze. The hog's spit falls into place, and the hog starts roasting.

Peeta starts whimpering again. Buttercup hisses again.

Katlanna shushes him again. "Quiet, kitty. Those coyotes love their BDSM. One of them could mistake your hiss for a distress call, and come out here and start tooth-wrestling you."

After that, Buttercup doesn't so much as pur. Peeta smiles...but it doesn't last long; the second hog's barrel was the last one before his.

Katlanna walks up to him, twirling the lighter in her hand. Peeta's almost crying. She looks at him. He's begging her for mercy.

She smiles at him. She turns around, squats, and rummages around in a pile for something. Her bare ass is in full and present view. And with no full moon out tonight, her moon is the fullest he can see...

She stands, and turns back around. She's still got the lighter. And, she's got a goblet in her other hand. Peeta watches her, in horror...

She moistens her lips. She lights the lighter; Peeta winces. She sticks the burning end into the goblet, moves it around, moves it over the rim of the goblet a few times, turns it off, and puts it away. She fetches some booze from the barrel, and drinks it. She refills it, and wets Peeta's lips...as he's hanging upside down.

She lies down on top of the barrel. She severs Peeta's string. His spit falls, and he falls down, front-down, on top of her. He's on the spit now, and he's rotating-they both are.

She clings to him as his spit spins around and around. "Tonight," she says, smiling and kissing him, "I'm not just the Girl on Fire. I'm the Girl AND the Fire. And I'M roasting you," she giggles, "Pete-Pa."

Pete-Pa?! Now THERE'S something Katniss has never called her husband-or any man, that matter, let alone Gale...

This would make Peeta sick-if he'd had more than one goblet of booze. At least Katlanna has more access to drinking it than he does...even if it's only every 360 degrees...

The little things add up, of course. By the middle of the night, she'll be drunk enough to fall off this spit, and drown in that barrel of booze.

Peeta sure hopes she doesn't, though. Someone's gotta cut him free, after all...


	3. Chapter 3

Thrown hatchets hit tree trunks...and stick to them. On by one, they fly to white-painted targets on tree trunks, and hit a bullseye each time.

Johanna Mason practices her skill, while in witness protection. District 7 is a long way from District 12...but that's just the price one pays for having witnessed a murder.

She hasn't fattened up much since her captivity in the Capitol. Then again, she did look like a whore when Katniss first met her. As a witness, she's been protected for quite some time now. She's just about settled here.

She chops wood, and makes a deadly impression while doing so. Before the Hunger Games, she wouldn't have known she was a born killer. But she sure knows now. Twenty-three of her peers died in that game-whether she killed them all or not is a mystery she'll never reveal to anyone-except maybe the right man, if he doesn't tell anyone...but then she'd expect him to, so therefore, the secret MUST die with her.

Witness protection drives a girl crazy after a while. And just as much, it makes her sex-hungry as well...

"O KATNISS, WHERE ARE YOU?! I MISS YOU ALREADY! HELP! HELP! SOMEBODY! MY WIFE'S A...!"

Johanna stops. That voice sounds familiar to her. As a matter of fact, she knows it VERY well. She and the shouter of those screams shared a prison in the Capitol during the Revolution.

She waits, and looks around. The scream stops, as if its source was never there. Then it hits Johanna: that was a jabberjay. She chuckles, and goes back to chopping wood.

She slows. There was something wrong with that jabberjay's scream. It just mimicked Peeta saying something about his wife. Also, jabberjays aren't known for their memory. That jabberjay just recited something it overheard very recently. And somehow, it's where Johanna can hear it...

Are jabberjays migratory? Probably not, but they can probably teleport to other districts...

"HELP! HELP!"

Johanna smiles, and shakes her head. Those jabberjays really know how to mimic distress. Also, she could've told Peeta not to marry Katniss. Somehow, Johanna always knew that Katniss would turn out to be quite the irate wife...if she ever married.

Johanna was almost convinced that she and Peeta would divorce within the decade if the Second Rebellion became the Revolution. And it sounds like that jabberjay has just announced, twice, that Peeta's marriage is on its own highway to...

She hears footsteps. They're running. They're getting close. Not thinking, Johanna grabs an ax, and rushes off to intercept those steps.

She leaps into their path, and cuts the runner off. She's armed with two throwing axes, and she sure as hell knows how to use them.

Peeta stops. Johanna freezes. They gape at one another. Peeta blinks, and shakes his head.

"Johanna?!"

"Peeta?"

Peeta blinks his eyes several times. "What...district is this, again?"

"I witnessed a murder," Johanna says, inadvertently freezing Peeta in his tracks again. "I'm out here because someone in District 7-or wherever else-wants me dead."

"Haymitch Abernathy is in District 7," Peeta says, without remembering that information's relevance. He blinks and shakes his head. He notices that Johanna's still poised to strike. "Are you going to..."

"Oh," Johanna realizes she's still holding up her axes, and rests them, "sorry. Witness protection can get boring after a while."

"Good god, how long have you..." Peeta changes the subject. "I need your help. Katniss is going through something really scary, and I really don't want her to..."

"Pee-TA, PEETA, PEETA, PEETA, PEETA! Pee-TA!"

Katlanna calls her husband like a hog farmer calls a hog. She's husband-calling...like on that episode of Tool Time when the Tool Man lost his hearing to the volume of a seasoned husband-caller's calls..."

"She's getting close," Peeta perspired. "We gotta go, now!"

"There are jabberjays around here," Johanna reminds him. "Are you sure it wasn't one of those?"

"JOHANNA! KATNISS HAS CHASED ME INTO A CORNER! SHE'S HUNG ME UPSIDE DOWN OVER A BARREL OF WHISKEY AND ROASTED ME ON A SPIT! AND THAT'S JUST PART OF IT! I DON'T KNOW WHO SHE IS NOW, BUT SHE'S DANGEROUS! WE'VE GOT TO..."

Someone laughs behind Peeta. Peeta shivers as he turns around.

Katlanna's here. She's just as nude and blonde as before.

Johanna surprises Peeta, as she gets between him and Katlanna, and raises both her axes. Katlanna gapes, and backs away a few steps.

"Throw them, Johanna," Peeta whispers. "I'm telling you, she can't be controlled!"

Johanna chuckles. "Tell me about it!"

Katlanna stares...and laughs, drunkenly. "Do you really think you can run from me, Peeta? I'm your destiny! No woman will keep you from me for as long as I will!"

"Listen, Katniss," Johanna begins, "I don't know what you're going through, or why your hair is blonde, or why you're naked, but right now, I can tell that Mellark's really scared of you. You need to..."

"Who are you? Are you...his wife, or something?"

Johanna blinks, and shakes her head. "What?! No, Katniss, we know each other! Quarter Quell, Revolution...remember?"

"Like I said, Johanna," Peeta says softly, "she's not herself. She's been..."

"Look, there's no need for violence," Katlanna insists. "I'm just having fun with Peeta, so if you don't mind..."

"Fun?! KATLANNA, YOU'VE BEEN TRYING TO KILL ME! YOU ALMOST SET ME ON FIRE! YOU TRIED TO EAT ME...!"

"Of course I want to eat you, Peeta! I'm in love with you! And you're the one who sets me on fire! Now come back home, and let me prove it to you!"

"I DON'T NEED PROOF! I'VE SEEN ENOUGH!"

Johanna puts her axes down, and turns to Peeta. "I don't know what you're doing out here, Mellark, besides the fact that you were born and raised here, but you HAVE to go home and give that-whoever she is, whatever she wants. I don't know much about men, but I've known a lot guys who'd kill for a woman like her. Hell, I once considered having cosmetic surgery to make myself look like Katniss does now, for a guy who I once thought I cared about!"

"You don't get it, Johanna! She's not Katniss! She's Katlanna! I don't know who she is, but she's not my wife half the time! She's Ms. Hyde! She's a different person!"

"Oh yeah," Johanna acknowledges Katniss, as she uses a bow and arrow to fire several arrows, within a few seconds of each other, at a target painted on a tree trunk. "I can see that."

"Let me stay with you for a while, Johanna. Please. Just knock Katniss in the head, and I'll take her somewhere far away. She won't find out where you're staying..."

"Sorry, Peeta, but I'm not really here by my own command. There are androids up at my cabin who're prepared to kill anyone who gets too close to me. I have no idea why they're not out here now. You have no idea how lucky you are to be this close to me, and still breathing."

"But Johanna! I need you!"

Johanna puts her finger to Peeta's lips, and gracefully shushes him. "Go home, Peeta. Katniss-or whoever she is now-needs you. And I need lotion for my hands."

She starts to go back to the cabin she's staying at. Peeta doesn't understand why she thinks her hands need lotion; they sure felt fine against him.

"O, but Peeta," Johanna turns, and winces flirtatiously. "If Katniss ever does give you a moment, you now know where you can find me. We have so much to catch up on. I feel like I haven't seen you in a while."

With that, she leaves. Peeta feels weak, all of a sudden.

"This can't be happening," Peeta says to himself. "My wife's falling out of love with me, and now I've got two crazy bitches chasing me. What have I done wrong?! Married men with jobs aren't supposed to have this much trouble with women!"

"Pee-TA, PEETA, PEETA, PEETA, PEETA," a jabberjay calls. Peeta feels like screaming in rage...but doesn't, because he doesn't want to hear the jabberjays repeat it back to him.


	4. Chapter 4

MILA, Peeta's employer, medically analyzes Katniss. Being an AI, she won't likely take long to find what's wrong with Peeta's wife.

From another room, Peeta watches. He can't remember the last time he saw his wife sleep. She looks so angelic when she sleeps. And yet, he misses somebody while watching her sleep...

"You should relax, Mr. Mellark," MILA says. "Research suggests that the best of people who go to extremes to protect their loved ones have a 93% chance of becoming any and every threat they toil to protect them against."

"SHUT UP," Peeta shouts. "I'm not giving up on my wife."

Peeta keeps watching her. MILA's still analyzing her.

"Research also says," MILA adds, "that men who spend too much time obsessing over particular women end up becoming emotional clones of them. I recommend..."

"You know what, MILA? I don't care that you're my boss. And I sure as hell don't care that you could fire me for saying this. But please, just do your job, and stop telling me how to love my wife."

"I cannot terminate you because you insult me, Mr. Mellark. I am an AI; insults neither hurt nor influence me."

The janitor slips in. He invites Peeta to play some water polo on the weekend.

"WILL YOU PLEASE JUST GET OUT OF HERE," Peeta shouts. "I'M TRYING TO FIX WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY WIFE!"

The janitor shivers, and leaves. MILA compliments him on his work, to which he only gives a thumbs-up before leaving.

"There was no need to scream at the janitor, Mr. Mellark," MILA reminds him. "He was just trying to encourage..."

"I don't need to have this conversation, MILA. Just fix what's wrong with my wife so I can get back to my ordinary monotonous life-no rhyme intended, FYI."

"I might have to recommend you for psych-eval, Mr. Mellark, with your consent..."

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY WIFE?!"

MILA finishes the analysis. To Peeta, it feels like forever.

"It seems Mrs. Mellark has earned a clean bill of health. Her liver's damaged...but I've seen worse. Her blood pressure's a little high...but then again, she is a married woman in a part-time state of estrus. I prescribe fewer barrels of Kaintuck bourbon, and immediate release."

"What?! No, MILA, you can't release her! I'm telling you, she's crazy! That woman is a threat to District 7 if you let her go!"

"I have a job, Mr. Mellark. I've done it. And as it is protocol forbids me to do work at these hours. I could analyze her again for you, but I'd have to charge you this time-and the charge for each subsequent time would be more than its previous, in accordance with my protocols."

"Fuck your protocols, MILA! Katniss needs a cure! Katlanna Snowdeen needs to die! I NEED MY LIFE BACK!"

"Your free session is over, Mr. Mellark. It's time to go home."

With that, all of the power shuts off in the hospital. The back door unlocks itself, and swings open. Above it, the letters on the EXIT sign vanish, and a timer appears. It starts counting down from fifteen minutes-how long the Mellarks have got before the back door locks itself, and they're locked in for the rest of the night.

Peeta sighs, picks up Katniss, hangs her from his shoulder, and leaves. She may be heavy...but he's just now realizing how convenient a grief pillow her ass makes as it's right up against the side of his face, as he's carrying her.


	5. Chapter 5

It's morning on a weekend. Katniss is on the back patio, torturing and killing more mice as test subjects for her ultimate replacement of her late sister's cat.

Every now and then, Buttercup sneaks in and tries to rob the mouse tank. Katniss naturally responds by throwing a machete, and nearly turning Buttercup into _gato con mantequilla_.

She really shouldn't do that. Those blades leave marks on the patio. Plus, they make sparks. And sparks are a fire hazard in the summer.

Peeta's on the top of a hill. It's the highest hill in the region. And therefore, it's the place in the region with the best wireless reception. But more importantly, he's far away from Katniss if she spontaneously becomes Katlanna when he doesn't expect her to.

He's woven some antennas between trees. He's got a satellite dish atop the tallest one. And, he's got an outhouse at the base of it. From inside, he chats with Haymitch Abernathy, an old parasite-turned-friend, and a fellow victor of the Hunger Games...only older...and a drinking problem that makes Katniss's look like an elephant (i.e. not a rightist).

Although yes, Katniss is a little rightist, too. Except she'd fit in a LOT better with that crowd, Peeta thinks, if she were a man.

Haymitch is in District 7, learning how to work with wood. He's already mailed the Mellarks several of his accomplishments. Katniss keeps them all in an overlooked cabinet at the house. Although Peeta doesn't tell Haymitch that, of course.

One time, in subtle retaliation, Katniss mailed back her own essay on existentialism. (It was just a blank pamphlet.)

Peeta admits that as much as he loves Katniss, he'd kill to be where Haymitch is now (i.e. away from his wife). With that said, he tries to smile, and asks Haymitch how Effie's doing in wedlock (i.e. whether she becomes a scary blonde nudist werewolf half the time).

Haymitch laughs, and admits that Effie's doing great. He swears that Effie's the best thing humanity's ever invented since Laura Bush.

For some reason, Peeta can't stand talking about Effie's appeal with one of his best friends. He breaks down, and confesses to Haymitch that he feels like he's losing Katniss. What's even worse, he might be falling for not one, but TWO different women now. He also thinks he might be falling for his boss at work-who isn't even a human.

Haymitch chuckles, and encourages Peeta to calm down. He thinks he knows what Peeta's going through. Months ago, he and Effie had a similar falling out. And he recalls feeling exactly how Peeta's feeling about Katniss now: that Effie would leave him, and that he'd be a sitting fawn for the cougars-or whatever one calls it when a man would've made great cougar bait as a boy, but because he stopped being twenty-five decades ago...

Peeta stops Haymitch right there, and asks what Haymitch did next. Obviously, he still loves Effie, after all; so he DID do something next.

Not that Peeta doesn't love Katniss. He just...wishes Katniss were more available...as the hideous beastly brunette coal miner's daughter he fell in love with before the Hunger Games.

Haymitch went to the mental health clinic. The AI there prescribed this medicine. Haymitch took it home, and took a high dosage of it. After that, it was like he and Effie never had any problems.

Now, Haymitch is worried that the AI won't just give it to Peeta because he asks for it, so he's going to mail Peeta the spare bottle he has of it. He'll keep just enough of it for himself, to step himself off while waiting for the AI to prescribe him a refill, but Peeta will definitely get the amount he needs to mend fences with Katniss.

Peeta almost jokes that he's worried that Katniss will find the medicine in his things and mistake it for catnip. But then he remembers that's Gale's joke.

Peeta tells Haymitch he appreciates this. He also mindlessly tells Haymitch to say hi to Effie for him during their next long-distance chat.

With that, Peeta creeps out of the outhouse. He looks around. It's quiet up here, aside from the trees and the birds. Perfect; either Katniss isn't Katlanna yet, or she's lost his scent.

He sighs, and starts taking down the wireless equipment. At long last, a possible solution to his...marital problems, just as soon as it comes from Haymitch in the mail.


	6. Chapter 6

This is a mental hospital. It's run by an AI named HELMUT. It's hardly the most glamorous mental hospital in all of District 12. Alas, it is the closest commute from the Mellark shotgun house.

Peeta's drugged Katlanna. But he doesn't know for how long she'll stay that way, so he's got to hurry up and get to the ward. She smiles, and mumbles happy things in her sleep. Anyone who didn't know her wouldn't know she was crazy and...husbandicidal.

He gets there. He carries her into the asylum. She's heavy. He has some trouble flagging HELMUT, but he does come.

Orderlies-humans and androids-arrive. They'd better hurry; Katlanna's starting to stir. Without question, they take her off Peeta's hands. She starts to protest-but Peeta doesn't see much of it before they take her up the elevator.

In a smaller room, HELMUT helps Peeta do the necessary paperwork-or digital work, rather. He warns Peeta that he can only keep Katniss for twenty-four hours without staff collaboration.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Peeta spits, "I've heard that all before. Just do your job; I'm just happy that Katniss is no longer my business."

With that, Peeta begins the long trip home. At long last, he's got his life back...for now.

In a small room, HELMUT's staff bathes Katlanna. She likes it...but it just isn't fast enough for her. Or rather, it isn't slow enough for her...from the POV of someone who's so used to going hyper-fast that it seems like everything and everyone else is frozen. Which...is virtually how Peeta reacted to her when they first met.

She sighs, and smiles. They're going to lock her up forever if she doesn't start a conversation with them, and soon.

Fortunately, she knows a thing or two about the AIs that run these places. She knows where they keep their "special accommodations..."

"Airship," Katlanna recites, "caucus...gold."

"Please, Mrs. Snowlark," HELMUT implores her, "don't embarrass me in front of my human staff."

The orderlies' eyes grow glazed as they keep washing her. They're fine, but...no man will ever replace her Peeta-or rather, his wife's Peeta, who she rightfully stole.

"Airship," Katlanna repeats, caucus...gold!"

"O Mrs. Snowlark," HELMUT moans, "you're going to make me the laughingstock of District 12...but here you go!"

In a flash, HELMUT creates a shared hallucination within the ward. It's a Norse lodge. It's dark outside. There's a cross-shaped runway, and barrels of oil roaring with stoked fires.

And Katlanna's dressed for the occasion. She's underdressed, and sports mostly loose furs. In the background, Viking metal music plays. Katlanna keeps her aesthetic parts on display, and begins by singing an old familiar tune-Viking metal-style...

For this next part, the music intensifies, and she screams and sings simultaneously. On either side of the runway she stands on, smoke stacks vomit smoke at full-blast. She wears a fur skirt, which flies up like a flag when the smoke blasts. Also, the fires' flames intensify.

She races up the runway, mounts a mechanical dragon, and rides it hard. She sex-fantasizes of Peeta while doing so, of course.

"Your performance isn't much different from some of the music videos I have access to, Mrs. Snowlark," HELMUT's voice booms over the metal music's noise. "I'm beginning to reanalyze your husband's claim of your insanity."

Katlanna swings a ball-and-chain flail around, like a lasso. She flirts while doing so.

She wields two swords, at the same time, while they're both aflame. She flirts while doing so.

She pole-dances, while fireworks explode from all around the runway. She shows off her upskirt while doing so.

She falls over, backwards, into a giant tub of Norse ale. She flaunts her beer-drenched body after doing so.

All around her, the staff appear. They're dressed as Vikings. They laugh, and toast their metal goblets of ale. Even the androids look like Vikings in this hallucination.

"My staff seems to collaborate with you, Mrs. Snowlark," HELMUT admits. "I will allow you to finish what you've started here, and take your leave."

The staff sits around her and ogles her, as she guzzles many metal goblets of Norse ale.

"On second thought," HELMUT admits, "I will prescribe a three-hour time limit."

Back in the mountains, Peeta gets home. At long last, the phrase "I'm home" once again has a peaceful ring to it. No more Katlanna. No more coming home after work to a torture chamber.

The wind chime, that's shaped like a dead hog hanging by its back legs, still hangs where it did. Peeta smiles, and pulls the string. The chime makes its usual distress noises. At long last, Peeta can finally do this all night without having to dread Katlanna afterwards.

His pants vibrate. He grabs his phone. The caller ID says "HELMUT." He smiles, rests his eyelids, and takes HELMUT's call.

When HELMUT tells him the discouraging news, his mood does a complete 180. It's just too awful to be real.

"What?! No, no, no, HELMUT! You gotta keep her in there! I swear to you, that woman is a menace, and a threat to all of Panem! She's not the precious Mockingjay Panem used to know, I'm telling you! She's..."

Nearby, Peeta hears grumbling. He looks around. He freezes. He slowly hangs up on HELMUT, and tries to put his phone back in his pocket without being noticed.

There are five wild boars. They stand before the front porch. Their tusks are bared. Their eyes are glowing with rut-lit fire.

"O my Paylor," Peeta whimpers. "What did I do?!"


	7. Chapter 7

Peeta opens a brown envelope. It's got a District 7 return address on it.

It's a bottle of pills. Peeta isn't sure, but he's almost sure the bottle's got Haymitch's fingerprints all over it...and the pharmacisit's...and the pharmacist's assistants'...and the bottler's...and Effie's... Point being, this is the magic herb that once fixed Haymitch's marriage to Effie. With luck-and with the state of things, Peeta's going to need a LOT of it-it'll soon fix Peeta's to Katniss.

"Omega-101," Peeta mutters, while reading the label. "Take a high dose for premium effect. Do not take with high-protein foods. Caution: may trigger premature menopause in female angler fish..." Peeta chuckles. "Sounds like Panem herbalism has finally got super-desperate for new test subjects. Why don't they just use mice? Katniss does."

Peeta goes downstairs, gets a glass, and reaches for the tap. He hesitates, and sighs. This almost feels like too desperate a solution for a marital problem. Seriously; most men just divorce women who can't play by half their rules.

He looks out the back patio window. Katniss is still torturing mice before killing them. He's looking at her-but it's as if her intuition can't even tell he's looking at her. She used to care about him. She used to cry for him. She used to not be able to do work if she thought Peeta was in danger.

Once again, Buttercup gets too close to the mouse tank. Katniss notices, and gets another machete out of the machete can. Or rather, they're boomerang-shaped machetes now. She throws it away from Buttercup. It comes back around. Buttercup yowls while leaping out of the way at the last second.

Peeta screams as it barely flies past him. Katniss catches it, grins, and puts it back with the others.

"They're boomerangs now?!" Peeta gapes. "What has gotten into you, Katniss?! I've tolerated your milder hatred of Buttercup before, but now it really feels like you're trying to kill him!"

Below, Buttercup starts rubbing on Peeta's feet and lower legs. Seems like he prefers Peeta whenever Katniss isn't Katlanna.

Katniss acknowledges Buttercup at Peeta's feet, and chuckles. "Thanks for taking my side...husband."

"I want to talk about our marriage," Peeta confesses. "It's like we never spend time with one another anymore."

"This place's mouse infestation never ends, Peeta. And it won't after Buttercup leaves-if he ever does. And as soon as I'm done with this trap, I'm putting an arrow through that cat, and cooking him. BTW, I like what you did with those five hogs, over there."

The five wild boars, that Peeta accidentally called the other night, are hanging by their hind legs over respective barrels of booze. OMG; Katniss is so obsessed with Buttercup's replacement that she can't even take pride-let alone remember-her better acts.

"Katniss," Peeta begins to sob, "those boars attacked me! You saved them from me! You did such a good job of killing them that I thought you were going to kill me next! Katniss, please! I need you! Please, for once in the history of you working on that trap, STOP, AND SPEND TIME WITH ME!"

Katniss keeps working. She grabs another dart, and throws it at a dartboard. The dartboard's got a picture of Fievel Mousekewitz from _an American Tail_ stapled over it. He's a Jewish mouse target for Katniss's ever-deteriorating Nazi heart.

"I miss you, Katniss. It's like I'm being tortured in the Capitol all over again."

"Look Peeta, if you're not going to help, then I'm sure you've got better things to do. Seriously; this is your weekend, and you're treating it like your job!"

So says the woman who can't take a day off from working on that mousetrap, Peeta thinks. He sighs, and leaves her alone.

So much for manual re-seduction. Peeta only has one option left. And it'd better work. If it doesn't, he's already got a divorce document upstairs with his own signature on it.

He gets a tall glass of water. He takes it upstairs. He opens the bottle of Omega-101. He empties the entire bottle into his hand. One handful at a time, he takes them. Once all the pills are gone, he drinks several glasses of water, in hopes to stabilize his blood pressure if the Omega-101 raises it; the bottle says it might.

The bottle also tells him to discontinue use if he starts seeing bacteria with a naked eye. Again, that doesn't make sense to him; but it worked for Haymitch, so it MUST work for Peeta.

He gives himself a moments, and waits for initial side effects. He feels fine. He smiles, and starts to go back downstairs. He stops, comes back, gets the half-signed divorce document, and resumes his quest.

It's not that he doesn't believe in the Omega-101. It's just that nothing else has worked, and he can't say he likes his chances.

Keeping the divorce document just inside the back patio door, he goes outside. He tries to embrace Katniss from behind...

"What, did you get attacked by tracker-jackers again?!" Katniss shakes him off. "I told you to give me my space! I don't know if you can tell, but this trap is still far from finished!"

And so, Plan X has failed. It's time to resort to Plan Y: the one where Peeta desperately tries to get divorced, and hopes against hope that Katniss doesn't try to stop him on his way down Divorce Highway.

Plan Z, of course, is where Peeta kills Katniss, because all else has failed. Alas, he'll never have the willpower to kill a woman he's loved for so long, so at this point, it's either Y, or suicide...assuming Katlanna doesn't kill him first, that is.

He grabs the document, scurries in, and tells Katniss to sign it. Blindly, Katniss smashes her thumb against the proper spot on the document-which Peeta points out.

"Finally," Katniss mutters, "you ask me for something simple." She pulls her thumb away, and goes back to work.

Peeta's out in a flash. Time passes. Katniss keeps working on the trap. Katniss blinks. That starts to seem unusual to her. For the longest time, Peeta keeps hounding her for quality time, and now he just wants her to sign a document?! This feels just a little too good to be true..."

She stands, and opens the back door. "Hey Peeta," she shouts, "what did I sign?"

There's no reply. She shouts the question; no reply. She shouts it so loud that one of the paintings falls off the wall. Peeta doesn't answer.

She runs out the front door, looking for him. She shouts his name. He doesn't reply. "PEETA, YOU GET BACK HERE! I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU! WHATEVER FUNNY BUSINESS YOU'RE TRYING TO PULL ON ME, IT WON'T WORK! NOW GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE! I'LL HAVE IT WITH A CATTLE PROD STUCK IN IT IF YOU DON'T!"

Far away, Divorce Court sits atop a tall hill. It also sits atop a pyramid of four different plethoras of stairs-one on each side.

Peeta's gotten weaker since he left Katniss at the house. He's at the base of the hill. High above, the steps loom away and over him. He's got the divorce document in his hand...and both are trembling.

Don't stress, Peeta. Remember what your folks used to tell you: that the beginning of a journey of a thousand miles is a single step. You know where the single step is. Now up you...

He trips over the first step, and falls on his forehead. He loses the divorce document.

Okay fine, take two. And this time, put a little more effort into your eyesight.

He staggers up the steps. He falls down them a few times. At times, they feel like they get bigger. He's lost all awareness of the divorce document-which is still at the bottom of the steps, where he dropped it the first time he fell.

He's not even halfway up the steps. He's not even a tenth of the way. He's tired. The world's getting too big all around him. His blood pressure's making him dizzy. He lies across the flattest thing he can find, and takes a nap.

Peeta wakes. It's cooler. He's underdressed. And something really strong and really painful is squeezing his midriff. And he feels dizzy. But at least he's got his back curled back, where it feels best after work.

Slowly, his eyes open. He screams when he sees what's around him.

Empty space is around him. The ground flies past him...and it's small. He's in a giant bird's beak. The bird is a mockingjay.

This bird is huge. Peeta wonders why District 12 hasn't called out the android militia to shoot it down.

The bird lands. As it does, everything around it gets bigger-TOO big. He leaves Peeta in an open spot of soil, and flies away. The nearest weed, to Peeta, is as tall as a tree-if not taller.

This is the side of a hill. To Peeta, it's like the stairway he remembers having tried to climb before passing out.

Down here, all alone, surrounded by boulder-sized soil pebbles, Peeta must embrace his scary new reality. The mockingjay isn't a giant; he's the size of a worm.

With that said, he's lucky the mockingjay didn't eat him. It's almost as if the mockingjay could tell that he's... But that's not likely. A mockingjay is a wild animal; it's not like every mockingjay in Panem is Katniss's avatar, after all.

Don't people have to be dead to have avatars? Or is that just in some ancient religions?


	8. Chapter 8

After a very long stint of keeping peace in and away from Panem, Gale Hawthorne walks into a bar. (I know that sounds like a bad joke...but he did.)

He's not here to stay. He still lives in District 2. Alas, District 2 has not yet taught him how to not miss the sweet, sweet beers of the District 12 taverns. And quite personally, those mason's and weapon-monger's daughters have not yet taught him how to miss those raw, cheaper, down-home miner's and doctor's daughters.

Mainly the miner's daughters, though. Katniss, specifically...

He sits at the bar. The bar is run by an android who looks exactly like a beautiful young brown-eyed ravenhead. Oh well; District 12 was always too cheap for Norse blondes. Gale kind of hoped their switch to the medical industry would upgrade the fashion of the local women, but it seems there are way too many chicks around here who just can't wrestle their own clingy crab's pincers off their miner's roots...

"Welcome, master." The hotbot barmaid brings Gale a mug of beer and a shot of whiskey, and speaks in a robotic/feminine voice. "Your business is valued. I am here to get you drunk within legal limits, or however much you will...whichever pleases you, master."

Gale smiles. "Paylor, I love Panem."

"I can lower my low-cut to your liking!" The chest window on the hotbot's slutty dress widens, within legal limits.

"As low as you can go, please," Gale says, smiling. "Thanks."

"Your pleasure is my command, master. Would you like to alternate staring into my eyes and low-cut as you drink your boilermaker?"

Gale grins. "You know what I like, babe."

"Would you like me to mix your boilermaker for you?" She reads his hormones, takes the shot of whiskey, swabs her boob-crack with it, breathes into it, and dumps it into his beer mug.

An old neighbor sits with Gale. They catch up. Gale asks about "Catnip," as he calls her, of course. The neighbor shudders, and admits that Katniss is in an unusual place, and has been for some time now.

Gale lends his ear. It sounds like his neighbor is trying to tell him that Katniss is sick.

His neighbor chuckles, and admits that anyone else would think so. For one thing, she calls Gale "Primsbane" now.

Gale chuckles, and admits that that name for himself is not without merit. He just didn't realize Katniss was so capable of holding a grudge.

His neighbor chuckles. He reminds him that Katniss is the Girl on Fire; she can hold a grudge that's capable of destroying two Panems and replacing it with the Paylor administration.

Gale reminds him that the Snow administration was like a slow-burning bodark log in contrast to the crummy tinder that the Coin one turned out to be. Alas, he admits he understands his neighbor's point.

Gale sighs, and admits that what Catnip has is probably contagious, and he should keep his distance. He is, after all, merely just a military man; Catnip's slain two dictators...and with one arrow, at that.

His neighbor smiles, and leaves him. As for Gale, he takes a big long swig from his boilermaker.

His eyes are bloodshot. But still, he alternates staring into the hotbot barmaid's deep brown eyes and deep low-cut for as long as he can make it last...

The boilermakers make her boobs look bigger than before. They're also concealed behind a white shirt that says, "BREAD: IT'S HUMANITY'S GIFT TO THE ANOREXIC." And, the barmaid's changed her hair color. And her placement...

"Hi," she says, with a pleasant smile. "I'm Katlanna, and I'm here to make a boy jealous."

"I'm... I'm..." Gale looks around-or would, if he could see. "Who am I?"

"Primsbane," a subtle voice whispers in his head.

"PRIMSBANE," Gale shouts, inadvertently silencing everyone in the bar. "My name...is Primsbane."

"Ooh, Primsbane," Katlanna repeats, subtly giggling. "That's so mysterious. And you're SO hot. You wanna help me make a boy jealous?"

Below, a cat wanders around Katlanna's bare feet. And, it rubs some on Gale's too.

Gale gives him a strange look, through bloodshot eyes. "You bring your cat to bars?"

Katlanna giggles. "I still don't know his name. He keeps following me around. He likes me, but he hates the boy I like."

Around them, a lot of faces at the bar conceal themselves. Many of them think Katniss is here to cheat on her husband.

"The boy I like is cute," Katlanna pours out. "I'm helping him cheat on his wife. He keeps running from me, though. And he gets harder and harder to catch each time. He keeps calling me the Girl on Fire, for some reason. And I like it."

"Hmm," Gale mutters. "What else does he call you?"

Katlanna sighs. "Freak. Bitch. Crazy. Insane. Attila the Whore. Sif in the Buff. A mutt. Husbandicidal maniac. Ms. Hyde. She-Hulk. Thick. Busty. Horror from hell. Ale airhead. Lager looney. Stout slut. Bourbon bitch. Whiskey willie-wetter." She shrugs. "He sure is talkative. I'll give him that. And he's SO fun to have sex with..."

"If you're going to get me to help you make him jealous, do it already. I'm sorely tempted to do to you what he can't."

Katlanna sighs. "Can you imitate a mechanical bull, while I ride you?"

"I get paid to follow orders for a living. Got another idea?"

Katlanna's eyes fall on the clock. "You like karaoke?"

"I suck at it. But it's worth a shot."

Karaoke hour begins. Gale and Katlanna sign up as a duet. They wait. Their time comes. All around, bar patrons are still hiding their faces. They take the spotlight, face each other, and stare into one another's eyes-his bloodshot, and her 20/20-as they both sing "Just By Being You (Halo and Wings)."

Steel Magnoia was a bit of a three-hit wonder from the early 21st century.

Gale/Primsbane/Joshua Scott Jones sings the first verse. Katlanna/Meghan Linsey sings the second. They both sing the bridge and the last chorus in harmony. Those few bar patrons who don't know who they are or that one of them is allegedly married give them a huge roar of applause.

It turns out Gale isn't such a honking donkey when he sings while drunk. Katlanna isn't either; although the whole district, if not Panem as a whole, knows that the Girl on Fire is no singer.

Afterwards, Gale and Katlanna have a one-night stand at the Mellark shotgun house. They sleep in sweet bliss until a few hours before daybreak.

Gale wakes. He's sober. He pries himself away from Katlanna, dresses, and slips out. He never sees Katlanna's face.

It's just as well. She probably looks Coyote Ugly after a post-binge-drinking one-night stand, after all.

In bed, Katlanna rolls over on her back. She's in the buff under white sheets...and happy.

"You're the best, Primsbane," she whispers. "But I miss my Peeta."

Buttercup leaps into the bed with her. Katlanna smiles, hugs him, and sings him a lullaby while half-asleep.

Alas, Katlanna's hair changes back to brown. Buttercup, smelling Katniss again, leaps out of the bed and leaves. Katniss rolls over the side of it and vomits. She relaxes, and tries to get some more sleep before dawn.

"Paylor, I smell like Gale Hawthorne," she mutters. "What the fuck? District 12 is supposed to be a medical haven. Why does everything smell diseased?"


	9. Chapter 9

Humid winds sweep up the eastern slopes of Appalachia. Dark clouds gather over their peaks.

To Peeta, the wild never looked bigger. The weeds are as big as trees. And everything else is so far away...including the top and bottom of this hill. And he doesn't know his way home from here.

At least he's gotten one good thing from all of this. Katlanna is no longer in his life. This is just...not the way he thought he'd do it. But it's just as well; all of his methods failed.

Rain pours down over the peaks. The springs erupt, and cause flash floods that flow down the mountains.

Speaking of what, Peeta's standing in the path of one. To him, it looks like a tidal wave coming downhill. He runs. But he's small, and can't get to a high spot in time.

The water hits him, and sweeps him off his feet. What follows is like a water ride-minus the safety precautions that a water park would reinforce its own real water rides with.

He gets pulled under. He gets thrown over. He bounces off rocks. He falls from rocks. He splashes back down. He gets scraped by debris.

The flash flood floods an area of grass. All around Peeta, the grass blades break the surface like treetops. The blades grow taller and taller as all the water sinks into the soil beneath the grass blades. At long last, the flash flood has given him a break.

The air is thick in here. And it's cold. Peeta stands, and tries to find his way through the forest of grass. He imagines he'll wander through it for days.

Time passes. The sun rises. Farther away, the mockingjays sing. And as the sun's radiation penetrates the canopy of the grass, the forest Peeta's trapped in starts to stink.

He falls over. All around him, the dawn sunlight heats him. He feels sick. He feels that if he has to wander lost through one more meter of grass...

He looks up. Most of the grass is gone. What little grass that's left is much more fashionable-in contrast to what Peeta just stumbled out of-which seems to be separated from all of this by a fence, Peeta turns around and sees. And much of what little grass is here seems to orbit the bases of flowers and small shrubs-all of which, to Peeta, are tall enough to make a sequoia tree envious.

It seems the sprinklers were waiting for Peeta. They surface from the ground, and make rain everywhere. And now Peeta's caught in an artificial downpour. And some of the raindrops, to him, are as big as beach balls.

Thankfully, the shower doesn't last long. The homeowner-whoever they are-must've realized there's been a rain, and delayed the irrigation system's timer.

Peeta lies among the drenched mulch, and rests. For the birds' sake, he sure hopes he doesn't smell like worms.

The ground shatters near him. Spooked, he rolls over.

An earthworm has just crawled from the surface. To Peeta, it's as big-and as scary-as a Graboid in _Tremors_. He's too close. Peeta sure hopes he can't smell him.

All around him, the worm's in good company. Other earthworms breach the surface in multiple places. Apparently this ground has gotten too much water after all. The soil's now too loose for them to figure out what their next job is.

They're blind, after all. And they can only crawl through their territory so fast.

Peeta stays put, and watches them...while fidgeting. He doesn't think they can sense him.

Some of them start crawling towards him. They're getting too close.

Then again, Peeta can only imagine they don't get very many of him out here on a day-to-day basis. He runs.

The worms are all around. They sense him. They crawl towards him. The only two things that make this better than _Tremors_ are that they're slower, and they're above the surface.

And their faces are less scary, too. Alas, earthworms were pretty creepy to Peeta back when they were smaller than his foot.

Peeta runs to a patch of groundcover, and climbs its vines. They're hard to climb. Up there, though, the worms lose his trail and crawl away. At last, Peeta can rest.

He looks around, up and through the groundcover. Caterpillars rest on some of the leaves. Their smorgasbord surrounds them. Peeta imagines they'll be up, crawling around, and munching soon.

Too bad one of them isn't Absalom from _Alice in Wonderland_. He could tell Peeta what to do now-all while blowing hookah smoke in his face.

From aloft, Peeta hears a noise that reminds him of a helicopter. Hoping it's a rescue helicopter, he turns around. Fearing it's a bee, he screams. He both relaxes and frets when he sees what it really is.

It's a ladybug. To him, it's the size of a battle tank. It lands on a leaf, just uphill from where he is. The leaf bends-and makes Peeta feel uneasy-as it adjusts to accommodate for the ladybug's weight.

Peeta must admit that they look scarier when they're this big. It's in moments like these he wonders if he's as small as the bugs the ladybug preys on.

Like a huge animal creeping into the midst, a woman's finger lowers itself into the groundcover Peeta's in. Peeta's startled; he didn't realize there was another human out here.

Her finger has a white-polished nail. She places it next to the ladybug, like a platform for it to crawl on. It does. She raises her finger from the midst.

Peeta climbs the groundcover, to get a better view. The sun blinds him at first, but in no time, he recognizes his giantess host's voice.

Her knees are like cliffs. Her upper legs are like mountainsides. Her navel is like a cave. It's hard for Peeta to believe that this is the woman who once escorted him and Katniss to the Capitol prior to the Hunger Games.

It's Effie Trinket. And she's home alone while the husband's away.


	10. Chapter 10

With her hand-hoe, Effie weeds the garden. Peeta can't really tell from his size, but he has no doubt that there's no imbalance in the Abernathy-Trinket garden.

While Effie works hard, heavy, and loud up there, Peeta gets therapy...from a caterpillar. He knows that none of these caterpillars are Absalom...but he's got no one else to do it with, and in this moment, he's overcome with a REALLY powerful urge he doesn't know he can say no to.

"Effie is so...magnificent." Peeta chuckled. "And you've gotta believe me when I say I NEVER use that word to describe anyone-not even Katniss. I've just...never been this small in Effie's presence."

He lies on a leaf, as if it were a sofa in a therapist's office. Aloft, the caterpillar eats away at the leaf its on, with little or no regard to Peeta below.

"And even among the District 13 rebels during the Revolution, I never got used to what Effie looks like when she hasn't...peacock-ified herself...for lack of the more proper term. And it seems like she does that less often now that she's with Haymitch."

The caterpillar keeps eating.

"And speaking of Haymitch, I know that what I want to do right now is going to upset him if I do it. Effie's his girl, after all, and if I did this, I'd be trespassing in his territory-not that I haven't done that before. Except before, I was volunteering to protect him from the Quarter Quell. This time, I'm trespassing what he cares about...with all due respect to that one time we were on the train to the Capitol, and he was drinking, and I was hounding him for advice about how to survive the Hunger Games, and I got so impatient that I ripped that bottle out of his hand... Right; not about him. And yet...how not, right?"

The caterpillar keeps eating.

"I don't think she can see me down here. I think maybe I can sneak into her without being seen...you think?"

The caterpillar keeps eating.

"But women are sensitive. I daresay Effie's more sensitive that Katniss. Not that Katniss has never overreacted to anything; but Effie likes her perfection, and she likes her balance. I'm just worried that she might be more sensitive to my touch, whereas Katniss would probably think I was a bug, and..." Peeta sighs. "Effie's probably going to think I'm a bug too."

The caterpillar keeps eating.

"And if I wouldn't die doing this, then I probably shouldn't. OTOH, I am alone out here. I got no guarantee that I'll ever get home. And with Katniss as she is, I'm sure as hell am in no hurry to get there. This could be my last chance. In fact, every ticking second on the clock could be, as things are now."

The caterpillar keeps eating.

"You're right. I've gotta do this. It's what I was made for, after all. With luck, Effie won't think I'm a bug, or squash me like one." He senses her giantess presence, still weeding farther away. "With me at my size, she wouldn't have to squash me very hard to kill me."

The caterpillar keeps eating. At any moment, Peeta expects him to run out of leaf to lie on, and fall.

"But how to get to her? It seems like every way to her is..."

Something touches Peeta. He overreacts, and nearly falls off the leaf. He grabs the edge of it, and hangs by his chest. From there, he gets a prolonged look at his poker.

It's a garden snail. It leaves slime in its wake, all behind it. It's sliding towards Peeta. And Peeta's pretty sure it wants the same thing the caterpillars want.

The snail approaches. Peeta looks down. It's a long fall. For some reason, Peeta isn't afraid. He lets go. He screams as he falls.

Aloft, Effie stops as she's weeding. She blinks, smiles, and continues weeding.

Peeta lands on the ground, of course. He's mostly surrounded by dead plant tissue, soil, and the bases of plant stems.

And he's not alone. Those worms still haven't gotten used to the messed-up ground. They're still crawling about. And here and there, they've been joined by slugs and more garden snails.

Peeta blinks. He thinks he can see tiny bacteria on some of the dead plant tissue. He blinks...but can't tell whether he actually sees it. It's dark down here.

"Wow," Peeta mutters. "I think I took too many Omega-101s!"

He climbs a stem. It's a long climb...but at least the top will be a long way away from those scary slugs, snails, worms, and bacteria...if he can really see them...

There are flowers at the top. They're big, and bell-shaped. They're so violet, they're almost black. They're perfect...and they've got big pistils.

Peeta's on the petal of one. It's like a mountain slope to him. Even from here, the flower smells great. And he can see its pistil...

He gets to the top of the petal, and looks down. It's like a bottomless pit. And there's nectar down there; he can smell it. It smells sweet.

He wants some. But then he'd get stuck-and not to mention fat-and Katniss would never take him back if he lost his figure.

Wow...is he to philogynist?

That's a big jump, from here to one of the stamens. Many surround the flower's pistil-like a colony of giant tube worms that surround a hot vent at the ocean bottom. Only rather than big red lips, these tubes are equipped with anthers, which are equipped with many, many grains of pollen. And they all want the same thing-and it's the exact same thing a man's sperm needs lest it ever end up on the ambitious end of an ejaculation.

DEFINITELY too philogynist...

And there's no smoke coming out of that vent. As a matter of fact, smoke is more likely to go INTO it...

Peeta isn't ready. But he must. He stands, breathes, raises his arms over his head, acknowledges where he's diving, and dives. It's a scary fall...but at least the landing will be controlled.

Peeta almost feels like Aeon in _Aeon Flux_, when she leaps onto those streaming tethers that hang from the bottom of the Relical as it flies around Bregna... Alas, Charlize Theron was funner to watch doing that stunt, and Josh Hutcherson couldn't even make history by doing anything similar in _Journey to the Center of the Earth_...

Peeta grabs one of the stamens...and yes, the landing is VERY reminiscent of Aeon's dive onto the Relical's tethers. Now he knows how much that must've hurt Charlize Theron to film.

He tunnels through the stamens, to the pistil. He climbs it. He gets past the anthers. They're hard to bear.

There's pollen. Its hormones are even more overwhelming from down here. Peeta isn't even sure how this flower can stand to have a man live in her. His pollen can't stop being horny.

This might be worse than a cuckold fantasy. Not that Peeta has never fantasized about Katniss with other men...or Effie with Haymitch, for that matter...

He gets to the top of the pistil. He lies down atop it. He plunges his dick into it. He does minor exercises while stuck there.

This is his backup plan...in case he never gets inside Effie. He feels like Jason Biggs in _American Pie_-and the kebab at the end of a skewer at the same time.

Yeah, this is definitely "third base," as the cast of _American Pie_ would call it. The pie isn't warm, and it isn't homemade...but it sure as hell isn't served at a fast food place...

Not relevant, I know. But that movie was SO memorable...

There's a sudden shadow, and a brief quake. And Peeta's got a feeling that someone behind him is taking a "moon shot" of him with their giant globe-shaped eyes.

It's a butterfly. To Peeta, it's like an aircraft with really big wings. It's lowered its proboscis into the flower. It's drinking its nectar.

This is Peeta's next chance. He sure hopes Effie loves butterflies as much as she loves ladybugs, or this could get dangerous.

At least a bird won't eat them in mid-flight. They say the more brightly colored a butterfly, the more poisonous it is.

Peeta tries to push himself off the pistil. He's stuck. Or rather, his dick is stuck. He wiggles. The female half of the perfect flower is stubborn. She thinks she's found the right man-or the right pollen grain, just as likely...

Peeta calms down, and places his mouth dangerously close to the pistil's surface. "I don't want to marry you," he whispers.

Peeta falls off the pistil. He brushes the pollen during the fall. His eyes water. He can't see where he's falling.

He doesn't know how he grabs the proboscis in the right place. But he does. Wiping his eyes and watering his nose all the way, he climbs the butterfly's proboscis. He stops, and waits for it to stop drinking.

The butterfly takes off. Peeta's plan is to ride on its back. But it's cold and noisy up there. He somehow finds one of the butterfly's front legs, and hangs from it as it flies. His eyes are still wet, and his nose is still running. He waits desperately to start seeing and breathing again.

Alas, that won't likely happen anytime soon. It seems grains of pollen are stuck to all six of the butterfly's legs. At least there's not as much. Alas, it's still enough to keep Peeta blind and breathless for as long as it lasts.

The butterfly lands in a bunch of other flowers. This does NOT make Peeta's problem better...

Peeta's getting tired. He can't cling to this bug's leg indefinitely...

He can't see, but he sees a white sea below. It feels feminine. He hates to drop in on her like this. But he must at some point.

He doesn't have to. The butterfly lands on her knee. At long last, he legs go of the bug's leg, and falls onto the sweet-smelling and -looking nourishment of Effie's. He's still tearing and running mucus, but hopefully that'll all go away as soon as the butterfly does.

He wants to see her. He can't see her. That butterfly won't go away. There are still pollen grains on its legs.

Peeta gives up. He crawls over to the bug's leg, and bites it. The bug flies away. At long last, no more pollen...

His eyes and nose both stabilize. By now, he's left a puddle of his own tears and snot on Effie's knee...which she'll probably mistake for a drop of dew.

At last, he can see. And he can breathe. He'll soon be SO glad he can. Because what he'll see next will take every gas molecule of breath from all that's left of him.

Effie's sunbathing. She's in a revealing yellow bikini. Her knees are up, but her legs are relaxed. And they are THE sexiest peaks Peeta's ever been atop of.

Peeta did it. He made it to Effie. And he's getting hard. Being able to see Effie's upskirt from where he is-as well as how much bigger it is than him-is helping VERY much with that.

The hard part of today's work is over; now he must get inside her. And he has no idea how he's going to do that.


	11. Chapter 11

Effie's in a bathtub. She's washing herself. She smothers soapy water all over her bare legs, and caresses them with her equally drenched and sudded hands. She feels like she's in heaven...and she has no idea she has an audience.

Staying on Effie's lower leg has been hard. Especially now. Sometimes Peeta can't breathe without drowning. Sometimes he can't see without getting sore eyes. At least this is WAY more nourishing than pollen. He wouldn't mind dying here, actually.

He gets washed overboard a lot. Just as often, Effie's leg submerges, like a mountainous submarine. From there, all Peeta's got to do is swim to the place where Effie's leg is most likely to surface. Intuitive, he's usually right.

There's a telecomm pad on the wall near her. She punches a few buttons on it. An earpiece materializes itself in her ear. A mike materializes itself near her mouth.

Effie chats with Haymitch, her husband. Peeta nearly freezes-and drowns-when he overhears what's going on up and over there.

Not to worry, Peeta thinks, Haymitch is still in District 7, and Effie doesn't know I'm here. Oh, but for how much longer?

She raises her legs, and rests them on either rim of the bathtub. Peeta's still on one. Her legs are still wet. His perch is hardly stable.

To her, he'd look like a gnat caught in a water drop. But she's dreaming of Haymitch, and doesn't notice what's on her lower leg.

Meanwhile, her upper legs swell. Beneath the water, her ass swells. Far away, her boobs swell. Farther away, her lips swell.

She's one excited beauty-and does a VERY talented job of repressing half of it.

She caresses her upper leg with her hand. Thankfully, it's not the same leg of hers Peeta's stuck on.

Online, she talks to Haymitch as if he were a bug crawling all over her. She talks about it as if she misses it. Peeta gets scared, and overreacts when she says some of these sexy lines. Sometimes it's hard for him to tell that she's not addressing him.

It seems that Effie and Haymitch are now so much in love, he doesn't gross her out anymore. She's talking about him as if he were a little bug-and she isn't expressing so much as a gag reflex.

Peeta isn't either. He loves what's going on. It's like he's in a cuckold fantasy-where the other man in the fantasy is many thousands of clicks away. Part of him wishes he didn't have to make a habit out of this...but he is very small, and won't likely get back to Katniss in one piece.

He doesn't want to. Katniss and Katlanna are both WAY too hard for him to sort out right now.

Peeta gets trapped in a drop of water. The drop takes him down Effie's leg.

She rests her hand on her own leg. It's the leg Peeta's on. To Peeta, it's like an airborne mountain just rested itself in front of him. Still trapped in the water drop, he's highballing uncontrollably towards its base-which is very fragile, because it's limited to where the tips of Effie's five fingers rest.

The drop collides with the tip of Effie's pinkie finger...and stops. Its excess drains to either side of her finger; some of it ends up back in the tub. Peeta, OTOH, is precariously wedged between Effie's pinkie finger and her lower leg. He'd never imagined he'd ever be humiliated this much by a beautiful woman's pinkie finger.

For may precarious minutes, he freezes still, wedged between death and trespassing. But with luck-which Peeta doesn't expect-he'll get away with both.

The wedge gets tighter, and partially strangles Peeta, each time Effie gets excited while love-talking with Haymitch. If she gets too comfy doing this, she'll soon sense there's something besides more of her leg under her pinkie.

At last, Effie takes her hand away, and touches her own face. Peeta cries, as he's unexpectedly flipped, like a tiny pancake, into the air above Effie's legs.

Effie raises her legs again, and returns them to the tub's water. Peeta sees this, while still in midair, and is worried he'll end up in the water where he can't climb a surfaced part of Effie's leg.

Lucky for him, he lands on her knee. It's surfaced. Far away, Effie's terminated her own call to Haymitch. She hasn't noticed the small thump on her knee.

For Peeta, that was too close. And the worst-which is also the best-is hardly over.

Out of the tub, Effie dries herself off. Peeta tries to stay out of range of the towel's fibers. She sure likes to be thorough when she dries off. Peeta's not sure for how much longer he can keep this up...

He doesn't. The towel comes for him. He leaps, and grabs one of the fibers. From there, parts of the ride are suffocating. At least he gets pressed against a lot of lovely places on Effie's body-even if only for a fraction of a moment. He still doesn't remember how he survives this part.

At last, Effie drops the towel on her bathroom floor-with Peeta in it. She slips, while still nude, into the shower. The shower has transparent walls. Peeta climbs atop the highest lump in the towel, and can see Effie, like a standing and balancing goddess, as she turns on the shower water and rids herself of the bathwater's excess suds.

This'd be a great chance for Peeta to plot an escape from her house and resume his quest back to his and Katniss's place. But Peeta's already had too much fun and too many thrills, and he's not about to leave just because he's not supposed to be doing this.

Effie sings in the shower. Peeta listens-and watches more, as her body's unmissable, as the shower stall's walls are steam-spreading.

Still on the towel, Peeta can't stop ogling Effie's nude, wetting, balancing body as it inadvertently flaunts itself within a transparent shower stall. It's women like Effie that make Peeta wondered if he jumped the gun when he settled for Katniss.

One very long trance later, Effie turns off the water, and climbs out of the stall. Like a giantess, she bends over the towel, with her wet, dripping body...

Oh no, Peeta initially thinks. Effie picks up the towel. Peeta is constantly smashed against the sacred spots of her nude body, and almost suffocated. Oh yes, Peeta dreams.

At long last, Effie hangs the towel on its proper rod. Peeta's trapped on top of her foot.

Above, Effie opens a drawer. She reaches into it with both hands. Her hands come out. They're holding a pair of stringy white panties.

They barely caress Peeta as she steps through their loops. For a brief second, Peeta's in heaven...not that he wasn't before.

Effie sits, and polishes her toes. Peeta hides in the carpet fibers as she paints the first foot. It takes her a while. Peeta sure hopes her house doesn't have a spider infestation.

She puts her painted foot on the floor, and paints the nails of her other. This is Peeta's chance.

Stepping lightly, he creeps atop her foot. He's on her smallest toe. Aloft, Effie hums, and still paints her nails. She hasn't felt or noticed Peeta.

Where he is, Peeta waits for the polish to dry. This is the only thing harder than waiting for her to paint her feet.

Later in the day, Effie meets with a District 12 official in the district capital. They sit in a cafe and have tea. The place smells of flowers. Recordings of classical music play softly in the background.

The cafe sells many strawberry products. With Paylor in power, strawberries are no longer state contraband.

The official talks to Effie about how things in the district capital seem brighter, with Paylor in the Capitol. Mayor Undersee is still missed...but he probably wouldn't mind visiting this cafe, if it meant buying strawberry products legally.

The official constantly moves her legs under the table. Effie hardly moves hers at all.

Far below, Peeta's enjoying himself too much on Effie's toes. The "wet paint" has finally dried. He lies down and rolls around on her heavenly-polished white toenails. They're huge. They're the size of ball courts. At least they're still smaller than Hunger Games arenas; otherwise, this'd be a MUCH less pleasant experience for young Peeta.

Katniss would hate him, he knows. Haymitch would hate him, he knows. Katlanna would value him more for his experience, he knows. But as long as he can't expect to live to see tomorrow, he might as well exploit today down to its last cent.

And he will. He'll leave his seed all over Effie's newly-polished toes, if he has to.


	12. Chapter 12

Effie keeps a small school of butterflyfish in a tank. If they don't appear happy, the tank sure does. One can never tell with fish. They only express their emotion via the speeds at which they swim.

And if they swim fast, it's in self-defense. That swim bladder sure doesn't run on nuclear energy.

Effie feeds them. Inside, they all eat it as if they haven't eaten in a month...if they have.

At long last, the day is nearly dead. The moment that Peeta's been waiting for is about to come to pass.

And personally, Peeta hopes it doesn't.

She leaves her sandals at the door. Still on her toenail, Peeta minds the sandal straps as she's removing her feet through them.

She's tired; Peeta can feel it from all the way down on her toenail. It's nearly time for Peeta to pounce.

Paylor-forbid of Katniss ever finds out-if Katniss still loves him.

Effie gets to her bedroom. She strips. Her clothes fall all around her, like the biggest and silkiest avalanche Peeta's ever gotten caught in. THIS sure beats any obstacle he ever had to transcend in the Hunger Games.

Peeta just can't believe it. Effie sleeps naked! This is going to be funner than he thought! He won't have to tunnel through anything material to get inside her!

Not that that would've been a bad thing. But women tend to overdress for bed, and Peeta would prefer it if he had something to look at, as well as feel, while attending to Effie's "lonely parts."

She lies on her back. She keeps her arms next to her body. She smiles. She breathes. One by one, all of the lights in her house turn themselves off. The butterflyfish tank dims its own light.

She sleeps atop her bedding. It's as if she doesn't get cold at all-or, she's a sucker for cheap thrills and risks...

Her chest rises and falls as she sleeps. O, how Peeta would love to mountaineer those boobs... But he mustn't get distracted. And he mustn't get caught.

The hours pass. The air pump in the butterfly fish tank vents and hums. Effie doesn't move. But she snores.

Peeta doesn't mind that so much. As often as he's been awake since this all started, he needs something to keep him awake as he does this.

Ah, her upper legs. They're so majestic. What does she do to keep them in such shape. He swears he can't look at or feel them, or smell them, or lick them, without hardening below.

The tips of Effie's fingers are dangerously close. But Effie snores, and doesn't twitch.

The dams near the Capitol can't compare to the majesty of Effie's upper legs. They're a climbing wall that Peeta could climb for the rest of his life...if only he'd brought climbing gear to Divorce Court on the day it happened.

They're like the fort that could keep Godzilla out...if he existed. Wait...is Peeta sure he isn't gay?

Ah, her ass is so soft. If not for its mountainous circumference, Peeta would say her ass hasn't aged a day since her infancy. He crawls under it, and stands in. The fabric of her bare ass surrounds and nourishes him. O, Trinket ass, where have you been all wee Peeta's life? Katniss's is probably as tight as a coconut.

Her hands are leisurely cupped, and close. From where Peeta is, he can feel their heat. Her hand could crush him if she were aware. But he closes his eyes and thanks Paylor that, for the time being, Effie doesn't know Peeta from her own beloved husband.

O, how Peeta would love to climb her ass. But Effie would surely mistake him for a bug and try to squash him, so he laps up what he can of her ass, and moves on to her more personal parts-not that it hasn't been too personal already.

Effie rolls over on her side. It's as if she thinks Haymitch is really there, lying next to her...

One of Effie's telecomms buzzes. Effie screams, as it wakes her. Unlucky little Peeta is on one of her bare legs, when this happens. From there, she inadvertently throws Peeta across her bedroom.

The tiny Peeta flies, flops, and screams across Effie's house. He phases through her walls as if they were air...

He splashes down. He regains his balance, and his sense of gravity, and swims to the surface. He looks around. He sees a pile of bubbles erupting in the corner of what appears to be a glass reservoir.

The water tastes salty. He sticks his face down in it, and looks around. He's not alone. He's in here with a plethora of butterflyfish. To him, they're the size of whales. And he's about the size of a speck of food Effie feeds them.

Peeta looks around. He doesn't think he can swim to safety in time. And even if he could, it's a steep climb up those tank walls. He's virtually a sitting bug, if not a sitting duck.

The fish take a while to notice him. But they do. They swim towards him. One is gaining faster than the others.

Peeta thinks about shouting for help...but then Effie would save him, and he'd have to tell her how he got here and what he's done since. And naturally, he'd rather not.

Alas, there are worse places, and worse ways, to die. At least Peeta isn't Richard Dreyfuss's character in Jaws...although it seems that the longer he lives, the more he realizes he wouldn't turn down that role if they ever did a remake of Jaws...

They have, of course. But naturally, movie conservatives will ALWAYS over-revere the Spielberg original/fluke...

The butterfly fish is upon him. It enlarges its narrow tube-shaped mouth...

Peeta wakes. He's still in the Appalachian woods. His memories of raiding Effie are fading fast. And he hasn't gotten much bigger in his sleep, it seems.

Effie's home is nowhere to be seen...or anyone else's home, for that matter. But the sun is in the sky, the breeze is in the leaves, and the mockingjays are in the trees. Every now and then, Peeta hears them respond to a mourning dove's call. Peeta always did think those were their most humorous moments.

That, and the one where Cab Calloway time-traveled to Panem and sang "Minnie the Moocher" in a forest full of mockingjays...

Peeta's lying on a branch of a fallen hardwood tree-that's decaying more by the year. At least he's not trapped in a crack with termites. Alas, that could change any second. He'd better get a move-on...even if he is underdressed.

The branch shakes. Peeta freezes. Whatever caused that felt big. Bigger than him, at least...

Something colossal and four-legged stands over him. The white star on its chest hovers high over Peeta like an airship. Its legs are very tall. And it's very furry all over.

It's a bobcat. If Peeta is thankful for one thing, it's that bobcats are slow at ease, and thus won't likely make any quick moves that would squash Peeta. Alas, if Peeta gets slightly bigger too soon, he'll be as big as a mouse. And he and Katniss know Buttercup way to well to not know how cats and mice mix...

Thankfully, the bobcat doesn't seem to notice Peeta. After a very prolonged moment of suspense, it leaps off the branch and lumbers away. Peeta heaves a sigh of relief. He will get a move-on...but for now, he's got to deal with the aftermath of the bobcat's suspense...if nature will allow him that much more time.

And down here, whatever time Peeta collects is precious. He doesn't have to make a big movement, or even make a lot of noise, to attract a predator.


	13. Chapter 13

Katlanna paces. Peeta hasn't been home in a while. She's worried that she scared him away. She's worried that he's hurt and can't get home.

The white roses on the dining room table have withered. Katlanna takes a timeout from her pacing, and replaces the old with new.

At long last, Katlanna can't take it anymore. Something must've happened out there, or Peeta would be home. He won't come to her, so she must go to him. She rummages through her armory.

She takes up a crossbow, and a quiver of poisoned bolts, and runs into the woods. She'll find Peeta, no matter what it takes.

Farther away, the forest gets darker. And the mountains revolve into deep valleys.

Far beneath many tall trees, there's a caravan. And there's a four-wheeler. And there are many cans of fuel stacked atop one another. A bad man lives here...and there are more where he comes from.

Behind the trailer, the owner hangs up a dead rabbit by its feet. He sprays an aged hormone all over it, to make it more appealing to his partner in crime.

Nearby, on an ax sitting in an old tree stump, a jabberjay lands on its handle. He waits for the trailer owner to notice him. He doesn't. He impersonates his ex-wife, and calls him.

He draws his pistol, and aims at the jabberjay. He sighs, and holsters his weapon when he realizes it's not who he thought.

"PLEASE don't do that! I swear my ex-wife is the worst thing that's ever happened to me!"

"PLEASE don't do that," the jabberjay recites. "I swear my ex wife is the worst thing that's happened to me!"

The homeowner draws his weapon again, and aims it at the jabberjay. "Repeat that to anyone, and I swear the next time we meet, you'll be a cloud of scattered feathers on the wrong end of one of my guns!"

"I'm sorry," the jabberjay mimics Annie Cresta. "I'm not trying to hurt anyone."

"It's what you were bred for, sunny," the homeowner holsters his pistol. "Now where's my target?"

The jabberjay mimics Johanna Mason, as she's complaining about the poor accommodations of where witness protection is hiding her. At last, the homeowner thanks him, and rewards him with a pan full of bird feed.

Later, he goes out on his four-wheeler. He stops, and dismounts.

He's brought a crate. He takes it out of the luggage rack, and sets it on the ground. He plugs several electrical chords into its side. The plugs the other ends into a handheld tablet, and punches several commands into the tablet.

Inside the crate, the commands are translated into foreign signals; a combination of lights, smells, textures, and chemical interactions. With that, the crate pops open on its own.

The trailer owner watches in anticipation. A copperhead mutt crawls out of the crate, and slithers in the direction he's been commanded to.

"Return victorious, little guy," the trailer owner says, watching him go. "For the sake of my money, if not for me."

Soon, the copperhead is on the edge of witness protection territory. He finds something to take cover beneath, and waits. Soon he'll make his offensive. As soon as he's got a clear path, and a clean shot, he'll take both, in that order.

Dawn rises over Appalachia. The birds start singing. The mockingjays start mimicking. It's a new day.

Katlanna is Katniss again. She's alone in the forest, with her hand, and a mouse, caught in Katniss's trap.

It seems Katlanna likes to chase mice as much as Buttercup does. But of course, Katniss doesn't know this, and has no memory of how she got outside, why she's nude, or how her hand got caught in one of her own traps.

Katniss looks around. Buttercup sits nearby, admiring her misfortune. Katniss retaliates by trying to throw the trap at him. But she hurts her hand, fatigues, whines, and cries.

Buttercup purrs, and bathes himself. He always loves it, it seems, when Katniss needs a wambulance.

"WHY," Katniss shouts, "CAN'T YOU JUST BECOME EXTINCT?! THIS TRAP IS SUPPOSED TO TRANSCEND YOU-_AND_ PRIM!"


	14. Chapter 14

Ah, the sounds of an Appalachian morning. The crepuscular bugs and bids chirp, hum, and sing. Peeta would think he'd meet some of them while traveling through a colossal forest. Alas, those bugs are just as good at hiding as they are at being heard from afar.

Peeta fears they're stalking him. But he can't afford that. He'll die for sure if he doesn't find somewhere else to take refuge. So onward he travels...with or without the chance of getting eaten.

Far away, Peeta hears thunder. He listens, and feels. It's neither humid nor dark enough for a storm. Also, that sounded like the thunder he's used to. Real thunder, he imagines, would shake everything around him for meters. This thunder doesn't rattle anything.

Peeta avoids the noise at first. It doesn't sound inviting, and in his state, he is very vulnerable.

Alas, it gets annoying. Curiosity takes over, and Peeta creeps towards the noise's source.

At first the grass/trees conceal everything for...meters. But then, over the canopy, a stump towers into view, like a lonely mountain.

A girl brings a log to it. She sets it on the stump, as it leans on its side. She takes up an ax, and eyes it with prejudice. And with all her will, she swings, and splits it.

One of the log's halves flies right towards Peeta. He shouts, and slides to avoid it. He does so by nths of a meter. The half causes minor earthquakes as it bounces across the ground.

Johanna hesitates, as if she heard Peeta's shout. But she only shrugs, and gets another log.

"Johanna," Peeta whispers. "Someone still wants you dead, it seems."

Peeta still remembers that awkward moment in an elevator when he and Katniss first met Johanna. She spontaneously made him her personal slave, in front of Katniss. And Peeta must confess that as in love with Katniss as he was, he still enjoyed helping Johanna take off her costume. And he's been torn between her naked bod and Katlanna's ever since.

Her bare feet are probably on the other side of that stump. He stays subtle, and circles the stump...

He knows Johanna isn't Effie...or Katniss. But she's not Heavensbee either.

He avoids Johanna's gaze whenever he can help it. Alas, her senses were probably enhanced by not only the Hunger Games and the Quarter Quell, but their shared captivity in the Capitol together with Annie Cresta. Dodging her will probably be harder than it looks. But at this size, Peeta's short of options.

At long last, her feet are in view. They're big, and filthy. But there's just something about a woman's feet that a man never misses. Peeta doesn't either. And if he gets close enough, he just might be able to look up Johanna's skirt...even though she's wearing short shorts. Peeta would say he admires Johanna's courage, chopping wood with a sharp ax in no shoes...except he doesn't, because he's seen Katlanna take bigger risks.

Katlanna; why her again? Isn't this supposed to be his time spent away from her?

Not that he'd prefer it. Like any other human, he'd rather spend time away from his wife in Margaritaville...if there is such a place.

Getting between Johanna's feet will be easy. Staying there will be hard, as she's always changing her stance while chopping wood.

Her feet...tempt him. They look like a fair consolation, considering the seeming inaccessibility of the "upskirt telescope."

Her feet stink and are filthy, of course. But for a girl, naturally, young Peeta would climb oceans and swim mountains.

As stealthy as a micro-bug, Peeta creeps across Johanna's feet. It seems smaller than Effie's did when he was trapped on her toenails. He finds a nice soft spot just above her toes, and lies down. He spreads out over the space, and gets comfy. At long last, he's rediscovered heaven on Earth. Paylor-forbid if it isn't cut short before he wants it to be.

Peeta listens. Johanna's foot isn't moving. He doesn't hear the wood chopping. He opens his eyes, and looks up.

He freezes. Johanna has bent over, and is looking right at him.

All of a sudden, her feet just got SO much bigger. Her entire self has, for that matter...


	15. Chapter 15

Now more than ever, Johanna wants to sexually subdue Peeta, and torment him in ways that'd make Katniss envious. But she hasn't yet chopped enough wood, so she returns to that for a bit.

In the cabin, Peeta waits for her in the shower stall. At his size, it looks like a big stall.

Johanna left the stall door open a crack. Peeta can't imagine why. He'd think that if Johanna really wanted to torment him, it'd be closed to where he couldn't escape. Johanna must be more human than he thought.

Peeta doesn't know whether to anticipate or dread sex with Johanna. He's been told that chicks like Johanna like their fun rough and their sex rougher. But he's sure it'll beat no sex with Katniss. And it can't be half as intense as sex with Katlanna.

Not that Peeta's complaining about Katlanna's sex; he's never overslept that much as a result of sex with Katniss. But Katlanna isn't Katniss, and Peeta must remember that as he looks for a way to get Katniss and Katlanna to settle for the old Katniss, and stay that way.

But is that really what he wants? Before this all started, it sure seemed like he was the only person in District 12 who preferred Katniss over Katlanna. And the more Peeta ruminates about it, the more foolish it seems. Katniss has been a cold-shouldered bitch lately.

The hours creep by. Still, Johanna chops wood outside. Peeta can hear the wood splitting from where he is. Johanna must REALLY miss her ordinary life in District 7...

Most people just masturbate when they miss sex. Alas, Peeta's been told that masturbation is different with women than it is men...

Far away, a spider crawls out of the bath faucet. It crawls on top of it, and rests.

Initially, Peeta and the new threat don't notice one another. But spiders are perceptive, and it's only a matter of time...

The spider notices Peeta. Peeta doesn't notice her. The spider aims, coils, and leaps across the shower stall.

Peeta hears it, when the spider's legs land on the ceramics next to him. He turns. He shouts. He runs. The spider chases him. To the cabin all around them, they're like two bugs running across the floor.

Peeta isn't a bug. But he smells like one, and that's probably all the spider cares about.

Peeta runs towards a window. It's shades are up. Peeta has a hunch that most spiders are nocturnal. He runs into the sun beam, and looks for a place to hide.

The spider runs into the beam. True to Peeta's expectations, the spider slows, and tries to shield her eyes from the blinding light. No doubt about it, she's got the eyesight of Dr. Mid-Nite. And only at night is that a compliment.

Johanna has left a pair of her pink panties on the floor. To Peeta, they're like a deflated hot air balloon. He hides in them, and pretends to be a wrinkle. At his size, he shouldn't have to try to hard to pass himself off as one.

Moments pass. Peeta waits in suspense, and listens to the spider. She stumbles about, blinded by the light. Peeta dreads she won't be able to find her way out of the cabin.

After that, Peeta will just have to worry about what'll happen if he's in this kind of spot when and if another spider gets in. He'd hate for Johanna to have to get rid of all of her spiders for him...alas, he thinks he'd understand if she chose not to.

Gosh, he's been small for so long that it's affecting his self-esteem. He'd hate to think that Johanna would want to have sex with such a man.

Peeta listens. The spider still stumbles around. She's far away. Peeta's too afraid to abandon his cover if she's still around.

He falls asleep. Or maybe he doesn't; it's hard to keep up with these things sometimes.

He wakes. He listens. He doesn't hear anything. He throws off his cover, and starts to get up...

The spider's back. She's over him, and staring right down at him with all of its scary eyes.

Peeta freezes. He supposes it's too late to trick her into thinking he's part of Johanna's panties. He smells like them, after all. Alas, flies are attracted to feces, which is what some parts of panties smell like, and a spider's favorite food is a fly.

Still, Peeta feels offended that the spider would think he likes to eat poop. It's as if she doesn't know him at all.

The spider bares her fangs. They writhe. Their venom is passed between them. Peeta stares helplessly, as these fangs will soon claim him.

A huge drop of venom falls from her fangs, like a beach ball full of fluid. Peeta crawls back, and out of the way, as the venom burns a hole in Johanna's panties when it splashes down.

Peeta's pulse couldn't be higher. The spider leans in, and robs Peeta of his space and wiggle-room. This is getting intimate. It's hard for Peeta to believe it'll all be over in an instant.

Peeta thinks of Katniss. And Johanna. And Effie. He'll never see either of them again.

And he thinks of Katlanna. He wonders if he could've given her a chance.

The spider caresses Peeta with her fangs. He knows they're loaded with venom. Peeta dreads his end. He whimpers. He perspires. He's somewhat turned on by the process...but if only he could enjoy himself while it lasted.

For some reason, the spider backs off. She elevates herself over Peeta with her legs. Peeta blinks, and watches. He doesn't get it.

Across the room, a fly flies low and loud. To Peeta, it's like a biplane. The spider turns when she hears this. She runs after its flight path, leaving Peeta in relative peace.

Peeta breathes, and regains the balance of the airspace in his chest. He really thought it was over for him.

He wonders why the spider let him be. He wonders if she could tell he was missing Katniss.

But that's just ridiculous, of course. Spiders are just as empathetic as Johanna, right?


	16. Chapter 16

This is a fire pit. It's prism-shaped. It's outside. The peak of a local Appalachian mountain is not far away-or up.

Up here, the air is clean. And everything moves slower...unless it's falling, and at this altitude, that's been known to happen.

Johanna lies atop the prism, on her chest. It's flat. You'd expect a would-be prostitute of a had-been president to have riper boobs. OTOH, she was tortured in the Capitol's captivity for as long as Peeta was...

She's in the buff. Her back is long. Her ass is humping. Her upper legs are overstocked.

Like a spot in the middle of her back, Peeta massages her back's most sensitive spot. He's hard...and he's overwhelmed by the local plain, made of human skin, that constitutes an older woman's back.

Peeta wouldn't call this cougar dating. Cougars are usually a decade older, or more, than their "prey." Johanna's only five years Peeta's senior. And in accordance with the "half your age plus seven" rule...

Interesting; two years ago, Johanna would've been too old for him. This year, however, he's just perfect for her, age-wise and everything...

If only he weren't married... But then, she's already said she doesn't care, hasn't she?

Johanna asks him if he's done this with Katniss yet. He tells her he hasn't seen her since it happened.

Johanna smiles. She seems to be glad that Peeta's this small. She has plans to sexually subdue him. He can just feel it...

But then, she has already. He's rubbing her back, and he can think of one reason-or two reasons, rather-why he shouldn't.

She asks him if he misses Katniss. He pauses, realizing he doesn't know what to think about that. She asks the question louder. He misinterprets the raised volume's meaning, and answers with an instant "NO!"

He keeps rubbing her sensitive spot. She tells him if he's wandering away from it.

Sometimes she bends her legs. Peeta flinches when she does. At his size, her heels are like incoming asteroids. And her ass cheeks are like a pair of dome-shaped hills.

Johanna seems to purr when Peeta hastily admits he doesn't miss Katniss. Part of him wishes he were a better liar under pressure.

And to think that Katniss always trusted him to do the talking during their travels in the Capitol prior to the Hunger Games. But here, small, on a potential dominatrix's back, it's easy for him to wish he had an envoy of his own.

Johanna admits that she's missed Peeta a lot since they last parted ways after the Revolution. Bed's never been colder. She confesses her depression even then; she'd always dreaded that Katniss would get the boy in the end, and not her. And to think that she, Johanna, and Peeta shared the same confinement as captives in the Capitol.

Peeta confesses that Katniss did a lot to help him then, including advocate for him when the rest of the rebels were convinced that he'd turned traitor. He couldn't just break her heart like he didn't need her. Johanna's a scary girl, but the Girl on Fire is scarier. Snow himself couldn't kill her, and he killed everybody.

Johanna chuckles, and admits that she's always been more of an nihilist. She believes that Snow didn't kill Katniss by chance, and not because he wasn't "meant to."

Johanna isn't pretending to be weak for Peeta. But then, of course, they know each other; and therefore, Peeta knows-and has seen firsthand-how dangerous Johanna can be inside and outside of a Hunger Games arena-but mainly inside.

This is no Hunger Games arena. Although Peeta would be bluffing if he said that his life hasn't felt like another Hunger Games ever since he tried to trick Katniss into divorcing him.

At least there aren't twenty-three other youths trying to kill him. But then, most of the animals that've attacked him aren't known for their relatively longer life spans...

"Katniss married you." Johanna turns her head, and smiles. "I wouldn't have. I would've fucked you until one of us died...preferably me."

Well...she's certainly no wife, in or out of marriage. But then, Katniss probably could've told Peeta that.

Or, so Peeta assumes. But then, it's been SUCH a long time since Katniss has been herself...

Johanna tells him she likes him better when he's this small. He's not very deterring when it comes to protecting her, but at least she won't have to wrestle him to keep him all to herself-away from prettier girls who make better bids-with bigger boobs, and more refined habits...

Peeta keeps rubbing the "secret spot" on her back. For some reason, he feels like he's found his calling...and it couldn't have been farther from Katlanna.

What sounds like a horn blares across the sky. Peeta looks around. A mosquito has dared land on his mistress's rump. It's lowering its proboscis into her soft fatty ass flesh...

Peeta doesn't hesitate. He abandons his post, and charges the vampire leviathan.

It's a long charge. Peeta's surprised he doesn't get tired before getting to the target.

He climbs up her ass cheek like an animal. But then, it's an animal he's attacking, isn't it?

Peeta gets there. The mosquito doesn't budge. He claps his hands. He shouts. He waves his arms. He tries to rip the damn vampire's legs off.

They're stronger, and a lot more stubborn, at this size. Peeta had no idea.

Peeta screams when Johanna pancakes the mosquito with her open hand, spanking herself. At least she didn't spank Peeta. Her hand was WAY too close. It could've crushed her. It just fell out of the sky, spontaneously, like something huge and flat. Peeta's lucky the wind didn't blow him into her A-hole.

"Hmm, skeeters," she brushes the vampire's carnage off her bum. "Hate those things."

As she sweeps, she creates earthquakes over her bum. To Peeta, it's like watching a carcass get ripped to shreds.

Then, Johanna reaches out her pinkie finger. She helps Peeta back onto her bum.

"You've earned a break, little one," Johanna turns her head, and smiles. "Enjoy a nice long nap on one of the best two mattresses in Panem, courtesy of what my mama gave me...seventeen years before Snow killed her."

Peeta tries to rest...but doesn't know if he can. At least she left him on the ass cheek that isn't smeared with mosquito carnage.

"And for the record," Johanna adds, "if you were Snow, I wouldn't have killed just the mosquito a while ago. That sorry bastardous excuse for a president murdered my whole family, and not just my mother, because I didn't become his whore. Panem's better off without him. I'm not gonna lie; I'm glad Katniss did what she did; I just wish she'd have saved another arrow-and a nuke-tipped one-for Snow."

Peeta isn't entirely sure Panem is without Snow. Ever since meeting Katlanna, Peeta's been undermined with a terrible suspicion that Katniss has become so obsessed with Snow-after having been obsessed with nothing but him during the Revolution-that half of her has become him.

And yet, Katlanna is so...playful, and good humored. It's hard to believe someone as pleasant as that could be Snow's legacy. Snow was cruel and vile. And any children he had who would've survived the final Hunger Games would've surely grown up to be just like him...even if they did look up to the Girl on Fire behind his back.

But Katlanna is also dangerous, and needs to be put down. Peeta merely means she's more amiable than Snow was; he is by NO means suggesting that he's warming up to Katlanna, or the cold-shouldered bitch Katniss's similar-yet-unrelated obsession with Buttercup has made her.

"But I'm happy to be your whore, Peeta," Johanna adds, "just so you know. But then...it's you who's mine now, isn't it?" She giggles, and rests. Every now and then, she startles Peeta with her asteroid-sized heels, as she bends her legs spontaneously.

"Rest long and easy, little one," she adds. "We've got a lot of work to do for the rest of our lives."

That sounded scary to Peeta when she said it. And yet, his more masculine parts actually anticipate what cruel sexual feats she could possibly have in store for her tiny new gigolo...


	17. Chapter 17

It's nighttime in Appalachia. The crickets are loud, as are all the night noises. It's dark. Nocturnal creatures dart from here to there, hoping against hope to avoid predation, competition, or whatever applies.

Owls hoot. Alas, their noise is about to get dimmer.

From the dense undergrowth, a mouse mutt wanders out into the open. He stops, and looks around. He twitches his whiskers, and his ears. He blinks. He shivers. He stands up on his back legs, and sniffs the air.

You won't believe what he's looking for. Or rather, who.

He crawls across the ground, sniffing it out. His tail is erect. He's like a beagle-only smaller, and whiter, and with longer incisors. Alas, the scent he hopes to find isn't popping up on his nose's radar.

He crawls on something, and hesitates. It feels like a tree branch...but he isn't sure. He hops on it, and crawls up it. At its zenith, he stands on his hind legs, and sniffs the air.

He hesitates. He thinks he's heard a branch get rustled.

Something big lands on the branch. And the branch comes to life. The mouse squeals, and runs back into the undergrowth. As he runs, he hears an owl shriek.

The mouse has a scary memory of bared owl talons, falling towards him like dual scary asteroids. He also has a less-scary-yet-sadder memory of a snake's venomous fangs bared.

As the owl flies away, it flaps its wings harder. It isn't attempting stealth...or health, for that matter.

Dawn breaks. The humidity spreads out. The crepuscular creatures come out, sing soft tunes, and forage for food in the dim light. The mouse mutt is long gone.

Peeta wanders through the undergrowth. The androids' cabin is not far. Or rather, from his POV, it is very far. But for Johanna, it can't be more than fifty paces.

And the androids can fly. They'd be there in just a jiffy.

Do they still say "just a jiffy" in Panem? Younger generations sure defy old ways a lot.

Peeta knows he shouldn't be out here. But he's worried that another spider's going to attack him if he stays in the cabin.

A fly flies low over him. To him, it sounds like a biplane. Another flies low-only slightly higher. Another flies low from another direction.

Peeta smells something. It stinks. It almost makes him faint. Once he's used to it, though, he follows it to its source.

At his size, the fallen leaves are like old lumber...if old lumber was wider and flatter. And the straw is like old ropes.

Peeta passes through a tree-sized bunch of grass. The first thing he sees is a giant eye.

He screams, and leaps back. He lies in the grass, petrified. He prays it didn't see him. He waits in dread.

Nothing happens. He hears a lot of flies buzzing-as if there's a massive dogfight going on up there-but nothing attacks him. Confused, he stands, and peers through the grass. As scary as it is, they eye's still there-as is its late owner.

An owl has died. And high on top of its carcass-from Peeta's POV-there's a power struggle going on between every fly in District 12.

Not that power matters in fly world; all flies are destined to become power themselves-for a spider. And one would think that if Peeta realized that, he'd do a quick about-face and race right back to the cabin.

Peeta isn't sure, but he doesn't think a solitary hunter like a spider would risk attacking a fly as it was surrounded by a vast number of its kin. If the spider tried to pounce on it, all of the other flies would fly away, reducing the spider's enthusiasm, if not his ambition.

The owl's carcass has long been sterilized. And in the absence of owl gonads, a new and different community has been planted.

Peeta isn't sure what draws him there. But if he was thinking about having children with Katniss-or Johanna, even-this next experience WOULDN'T encourage him to.

Within this rock shelter-which was once an owl's gonads, again-eggs have been lain. Many have already hatched. Up here, the ashes have been lain. And the phoenixes are rising.

Alas, they're not phoenixes. They're maggots. But to Peeta, they're the size of human infants. They consume everything around them. They might as well; it's all edible. And babies don't rise to power on their own.

Food, Peeta's own father used to tell him, isn't the source of a man's power. It's merely a tool to teach him how to use it. It'll be the same with these flies. And sadly, like many fine youths from other districts Peeta and Katniss once knew for a short time, most of them will be destined to end up in a predator's stomach before they ever master the art of flying.

Peeta allows some of the maggots to get close to him. He even handles some of them, as if they were real babies. But naturally, since they can't tell him from anything else up here, he exerts caution. As soon as they start to sting as he's handling them, or letting them crawl on them, he shuns them.

These babies are perfect; they don't make much noise. They also don't take nine months to be born. The only noise to be heard is the sounds of the natural gases and juices of the owl's carcass that occasionally erupt from the rotting tissue whenever their respective vessels get compromised. And as much as this is starting to sting, and as many maggots that seem to be piling on top of him, mistaking him for food, Peeta commences his exit.

While leaving, he circles the owl's other flank. He looks around. He stops when he notices the owl's ruffled feathers near its flank. Peeta narrows his eyes in confusion.

The owl's molting feathers are hardly a stable climb. To Peeta, it's like trying to climb multiple tapestries, hanging from their rods, as they keep falling off the wall he's trying to climb on. But some of these "tapestries" still hang from stable-enough "rods." By the wills of enough of these, Peeta gets to the spot on the owl's flank he saw from the ground.

To him, they're like pits. There's a pair of them. They run deep. And they get narrower as they get deeper.

Peeta dares touch the inside of one of them. It stings his finger-and takes much less time to do so than the maggots' acids did.

Now Peeta knows what killed his host-not that Peeta's not grateful his host is dead. If it weren't it'd surely eat him. Or rather, at this time of day, it'd be asleep. It's an owl, after all.

Peeta's had enough. He gets back to the cabin ASAP. And he doesn't collect any of the grub for himself. For some reason, he respects flies a lot more than he did before his first Hunger Games...


	18. Chapter 18

Johanna's bedroom is spacious. But then, it's not like witness protection is ever expected to protect crowds of witnesses at once.

Johanna opens the windows. There are three. Outside, the dusk is falling. The crickets and sounds of night have just commenced their dusk chorus.

Johanna wouldn't do this if she knew what to expect. But then, she wouldn't confess that if she knew that, would she?

"Call me sentimental if you want to," she tells Peeta. "But in many ways, I'll never remember the Hunger Games, or even the Quarter Quell, as crucibles."

Peeta's just a tiny speck on her bed. With that said, he's got no idea how she can see him.

He's probably getting bigger. But then, if only he could get bigger fast enough.

But not that he wouldn't rather do this. Even under Katniss's rule, Johanna's unmissable.

"As you might've guessed, Mr. Mellark, the fire pit was just a bluff in contrast to everything I have in store for you. By the time I'm through with you, you won't know me from Alma Coin from your goddess."

Peeta doesn't know what to say. He's not even sure she's giving him permission to talk.

"I know you already know how dangerous I am. You've leapt into the shark tank. Now prepare to get bit! It all starts when I take off my clothes."

One of the androids knocks on the door. "GO AWAY," Johanna shrieks.

Peeta's heart freezes in his chest as she screams. He knows he should be used to Johanna's screams, courtesy of their shared captivity in the Capitol. But down here, noises are sappier. Also, Johanna was in chains the first time; right now, though, the only chains on her are the androids', and they are not her captors...for the time being.

"We're all alone now, Mr. Mellark," Johanna says, with an evil smile. "Time to get dirty!"

A moth flies through one of the open windows. Johanna doesn't seem to notice.

She takes off her shirt. They always start with the shirt, for some reason.

She throws it on top of Peeta. It lands on Peeta like a deflated Zeppelin.

It stinks...and smells good. Peeta could get used to sex with Johanna.

It takes him a while to navigate through the labyrinth beneath her shirt. But when he finally gets out from under it, Johanna's in nothing but her cheap lingerie.

Cheap...but VERY revealing.

She closes her jewelry box; she'd loaded it while Peeta was buried under her shirt. She puts it away, and smiles down at Peeta.

"I thought about keeping you in my jewelry box," she admitted. "But I was afraid you'd suffocate."

Peeta would've been afraid he'd faint from low self-esteem. But then, that's kind of been the whole theme of his adventures in "bug world."

"We can try it tomorrow, though. I have NO plans of giving you up," she chuckles, "as I don't anything in my jewelry box."

She unbuckles her bra, and slides off her panties. She gets on the bed with him. Her knees create craters in the bedding that Peeta almost rolls into. At long last, there's nothing protecting Johanna from Peeta...other than the superior size and weight of her body.

"You're not going to take a shower first," Peeta says.

Johanna scoffs. "I would...but then I'd have to wait for this. And I'm paid to wait for everyone else back in District 7. And as hard as it might be for my manhunters to believe, I didn't come here to work.

"Now," she lies down on the bed, trapping Peeta in a canyon whose walls comprise her bare legs. "Climb to the top of my ass cheek, and don't stop adoring me until you pass out."

Without hesitation, Peeta does. It's a long climb, and he nearly falls a few times, but he does reach the summit of her ass cheek. Once there, he does what he's been instructed. It is a hard row for him to hoe, even if it is atop a ho's ass, but it sure is the funnest row he's ever hoed aback a ho.

I wouldn't recommend that as a pickup line, either. It's too much too soon.

When Peeta wakes, it's still dark outside. The night's noises are still loud, but getting dimmer. Peeta wonders how many moths have flown in since Johanna opened them. He's wondering if...

He hears Johanna snore. That answers his question; she's asleep.

He's back on her ass cheek. He has no memory of how that occurred. With everything that happened after he nearly passed out atop her ass cheek the first time, he should be on the bed smothered by her weight. And that's just if she really hates him that much...

But of course, men do this to women all the time in the bedroom. It's mean, but it's the only thing men know how to do when it comes to sexual expression, right?

Something moves out there. Peeta's heart freezes in his chest. He can hear the ground make noise as something approaches the cabin. Androids don't walk.

Every now and then, it stops. From there, Peeta enjoys some rest. But then he hears it again. It's getting too close.

Peeta can't take it. He abandons his comfy mattress, Johanna's ass cheek, and makes his way to the floor.

Her body is too tempting to abandon, he knows. But it won't tempt another man again if its owner dies tonight.

That thing outside didn't sound big-from Johanna's POV. And yet, maybe it's because Peeta can tell the noises' maker is bigger than him that he's creeping to take these precautions.

And another thing: he remembers the owl carcass from earlier. Maybe he's too small to appreciate a normal snake bite for the minimum amount of damage it does, but...Peeta just can't help but get this feeling that the androids wouldn't be keeping Johanna out here if they knew about the owl carcass.

But that snake was definitely venomous. And if it gets in here...

Most of the cabin is the bedroom. The kitchen is small. The lounge is small. The closets are moderate...but more small. The halls are short...if even existent. And there's an outhouse outside.

At least there's no moonshine still. But then, with all the stress that Peeta's been feeling lately, he probably wishes there was one.

On the floor, Peeta looks around. It doesn't seem like there's anything inside to worry about.

In the kitchen, the window's open. Somehow, the copperhead mutt crawls through it. He crawls around the sink, across the cabinet, and lowers himself. He falls. He coils. He has a hard landing.

Peeta freezes. He felt the snake's coils' vibrations when it fell to the floor. He doesn't want to, but he creeps towards the epicenter of those vibrations. He trembles with every barely-advancing step...

Slowly, Peeta gets the eerie feeling he's being surrounded. The air feels more humid around him.

Near one of the walls, a night light flickers, and turns itself on. Once there, Peeta wishes it hadn't.

He's been surrounded by a copperhead's coils. Its head towers high above him. Its nose is pointed right at him. He flicks his tongue. To Peeta, it's like a bullwhip. The snake breathes heavily.

Down here, Peeta's too scared to breathe. He put up with some pretty scary things in the Hunger Games and Quarter Quell...but this beats everything.

He doesn't move. It's getting harder to by the nanosecond. The snake is big, and outguns Peeta. And it's given him nowhere to run.

The snake flicks its tongue again. It gets way too close to Peeta.

Peeta can't tell, but it feels like the coils are tightening. Or, maybe it's all in his head...

Peeta stares up into the snake's eyes. The snake appears to stare back...albeit Peeta isn't entirely sure copperheads can see well. He knows that reptiles can't see color. So, with the night lighting in the background, the copperhead probably sees all this like anyone else would watch the nighttime scenes in a black-and-white movies.

(Yes, a few of those are still kept in Panem's libraries. And, every now and then, a new one is filmed...but no one regulates that, I'm afraid.)

Peeta dares not move. If he moves too fast, the copperhead is sure to mistake him for prey.

Peeta's pulse is too fast. If the snake keeps this up, he might have a hemorrhage.

Peeta could just be hallucinating, but he thinks he detects female hormones coming from the snake. He thinks that maybe...

The room is flooded with light. The snake looks up. Peeta runs. He takes a chance, climbs over the snake's coils, and leaps over the other side.

As he slides across the floor, a gigantic ax blade comes down, and scars the floor, right where he was. Peeta's flesh misses the ax's blade by nths.

The blade is raised. The snake lies dead, on the floor, in two pieces. Johanna's just saved herself-and Peeta, probably. The night light must've woken her.

Peeta takes back what he thought about the snake's female hormones. Snakes are natural sociopaths; and even if the copperhead mutt were a female, the females of some species just don't fall for the little man.

Two androids barge in. One sees the snake's remains, and takes them away. One sees Johanna's dirty ax, and takes it from her. They leave her alone, and close the door behind them.

Johanna still stands tall, and naked, over Peeta. She kneels down before him. To Peeta, her knees are like cliffs. She lies her hand flat on the floor, near Peeta. She pinches Peeta by the bum, and drops him in her hand. Peeta's gotten really hard-first from the viper's suspense, and now from her nude giantess body.

Johanna's softer than she usually is. Peeta begins to worry.

"That snake was here for me," she tells him. "You saved my life."

With her thumb and index finger, she rearranges Peeta's drawers around his waist. This gets Peeta worked up. Alas, the drawers are fragile. For a part of it, his dick is exposed...

He wakes. He's still alone in the Appalachian woods. This time, it's late at night. Crickets sing the midnight chorus all around him.

Again, Peeta's most recent memories of Johanna begin to fade. As much as he doesn't like being in this situation, it's getting REALLY hard to tell the difference between what he dreams and what really happens...


	19. Chapter 19

Back at the shotgun house, Katniss continues to labor away at the mouse trap(s). Her hand is bandaged. She's not even thankful that her entire body isn't in a cast...or dead. Indeed, the heart of the Girl on Fire has turned to stone.

Nearby, the mouse tank is becoming more and more occupied. Nearer to Katniss, the machete/boomerang well is becoming more and more stocked.

Underneath a bench, Buttercup sleeps. He's still around...much to Katniss's chagrin.

Katniss can't imagine why Buttercup is still around. It's not like Peeta likes cats THAT much...

Katniss can't tell, but the local mockingjays are mimicking the mice's noises in the mouse tank. And the mimicry is distorted by what all of the local wild mice have to add to it.

Katniss works with her back to the mouse tank. She's confident that she knows Buttercup's scratching when she hears it.

Night falls. Katniss becomes Katlanna. She prances around the house in the buff. She roams around in the buff.

She finds the mouse tank. She takes pity on the mice, and sets them free.

She misses Peeta. Pretending Peeta's one of the mice, she chases the mouse through the forest. The mouse runs, frightened. They all do.

She takes one in both hands, and pets it. She goes over the poor mouse nice and easy-as easy as she can with slightly calloused hands.

The mouse squeaks, as if being tortured. Katlanna feels for his dick, but can't tell whether the mouse is hard or not.

She misses her Peeta. She caresses the mouse in both hands until she can't tolerate how much the mouse bites her hands anymore.

She returns to the house, and cuddles with Buttercup. Katlanna can't tell, but it feels like Buttercup's losing weight.

Dawn rises. Katlanna is Katniss again. She goes out on the back porch, and notices the empty mouse tank. She shouts in rage.

Underground, mice mutts are smuggling the freed mice throughout the mountains. Some of the freed mice have Stars of David spray-painted on their white fur in light blue paint...

This underground railroad evades bobcats, copperheads, owls, hawks, and the like. At least with a bobcat, it's an instant death. The same can't be said for Katniss's captivity. Once far from Katniss, the mice run free, to whatever end.

The mouse mutts regroup, underground and just outside the Mellark shotgun house. (Or, is it the Everdeen shotgun house? Sure feels like the latter sometimes.) They've succeeded, with Katlanna's help.

Alas, Katniss will soon get new mice, and at some point or another, she'll deploy more of her "torture traps." A few mice mutts in the resistance have fallen to some of the old traps.

One of the mice mutts returns. In the mice mutts' own language, he tells the others that he's searched farther and wider than last time, at his own risk, but still hasn't found anything...or anyone.

They arrange to send out another scout next time, and continue their meeting. Alas, the more often they send scouts out to find who they're looking for, the more hope they lose that they'll ever find them.

In the house, Katniss orders more parts for her next traps. The mockingjays eavesdrop on her, and communicate what they overhear to the mice mutts.

And so, the rebellion continues. At least the mice mutts and the mockingjays can always count on Katlanna's help every evening and midnight.


	20. Chapter 20

A bobcat stalks through the forest. To Peeta, it's more like one of those quadrupedal mechas in _the Empire Strikes Back_.

Peeta tries to keep hidden. But the bobcat can smell.

Every now and then, there's a mouse exodus through the mountains. Peeta's nearly been stampeded by a few. On the downside, Peeta sometimes sees some of them get pounced on and eaten by the mecha-I mean bobcat. On the upside, at least it hasn't been him.

Away from the bobcat, Peeta must brave the long journey to...wherever he's going. He doesn't know his way around.

Around him, the scenery looks familiar. But it isn't home, and it isn't inviting. He's going in circles. He's starting to wonder if there's any hope for him and Katniss.

Through the forest, a nice drone flies. It's got the word MILA painted on its side.

Back on the ground, Peeta thinks of Effie and Johanna. He tries to remember if he ever really tried to make love to them...or if they did him. Naturally, he's pretty sure Effie didn't try to love him; with luck, she never knew he was there. Also, if Peeta was there, how didn't he get eaten by those butterfly fish?

He thinks about his job. He wonders if he's been fired for being gone for so long...

The drone descends, and hovers over an open flat space of ground. Peeta looks up. From where he is, he can see it. Its thrust causes a strong wind across where he is.

Peeta's confused. He sees his boss's name on the drone's side.

The drone lands, and turns off its propulsion. Peeta wanders through all the weeds that surround it, towards it.

From the drone's side, a door opens. A ramp unfolds itself, and rests its other end on the ground.

At first Peeta's confused. He thinks his boss might be offering him a ride to work.

A hotbot appears in the doorway. Her skirt is short, and her bra is sheer. Her hair is long and dark. With robotic balance, she descends the ramp.

Peeta stares at her. He had no idea MILA owned a hotbot who was as small as him-only slightly smaller.

Halfway down the ramp, the hotbot fakes a trip. She tumbles the rest of the way, and makes feminine distress noises-all eerily robotic-on the way down.

Peeta rushes, and catches her. The hotbot's expression is somewhat between frozen and feminine when he looks into her artificial eyes.

She has the face of Mila Kunis...or an actress with a similar reputation.

"Hello, Mr. Mellark," she says, in MILA's robotic/feminine voice. "You have not been at work lately."

The drone hauls in its ramp. It reactivates its thrusters, ascends, and leaves them be.

"MILA," Peeta greets her. He walks around. He's inadvertent that he's still carrying her in his arms. "How'd you find me?"

"You needed help. I came."

"And just how omniscient are you? How'd you know where I was, or how small I was, or that I was small?"

She bats her eyes, and loosens her low-cut. "Would you like to have sex?"

"What?! But you're my boss!"

"I order you to take better care of yourself, Mr. Mellark. I order you to have sex with my hotbot!"

"But I can't..."

"Sex," she covers his mouth with one of her thin and fragile fingers, "or termination."

Peeta sighs, throws her over his shoulder, and takes her somewhere more intimate. Once there, he takes out all of his stress on MILA's hotbot.

MILA's so perfect. Peeta's been away from Katniss for so long, he's forgotten how it feels. At least MILA's a hotbot, and can't bite back. Peeta never knew his boss could be so submissive in the bedroom...if anyone would call this that.

"Your mood is improving, Mr. Mellark," MILA reports. "I diagnose a longer treatment period."

Peeta keeps fucking her. This part of him always wanted to do this to Alma Coin during the Revolution.

"Your health is off the charts," she reports. "What is your sleep record?"

Peeta passes out. MILA lies beneath his body, with her eyes open and staring into space.

"Detecting lower energy levels," she says. "Commencing sleep mode." Her eyes darken. Inside them, the sleep mode light gradually flashes on and off.

The hours pass. Dusk creeps over Appalachia. The local crepuscular life awakens. Soon, the bobcat is back on the prowl.

Peeta wakes. He's heard a twig snap. He rolls over, and peers through the evening mist. That bobcat is back...and he sounds like he's fighting a rival over territory.

Under him, MILA boots herself from sleep mode. She begins to report a systems update...

Peeta swoops in, and commands her to reduce her voice's volume. She does. She speaks again. Peeta is much more secure with the new volume of her voice.

"Your stress levels have increased," she says. "I diagnose another round."

"I don't," Peeta whispers. "There's a bobcat out there, and she might eat me if she finds me."

"Very well. I diagnose taking shelter and staying calm."

"They can smell me. I don't think that'll work."

"Mr. Mellark, I order you to take shelter and remain calm. And I order you to have sex with me."

"Are you seriously...?!"

"Sex," she puts her finger over his mouth, "or termination."

Peeta sighs, gets back on top of her, and goes at it again. He thinks about how afraid he is the bobcat will find them.

"You are fully erect," MILA reports. "I diagnose a longer treatment period."

Peeta can't believe he's fucking his boss while a bobcat is hunting him. But as long as he doesn't have anywhere else better to be, he might as well do his best to apologize to his boss for missing work.


	21. Chapter 21

Deep in the rocks of Appalachia, Peeta has sex therapy with his boss. For the most part, it's a relief for Peeta to have sex with a feminine android who, A) feels secure enough to do it with, and B) will.

Plus, she's said multiple times that she'll fire Peeta if he doesn't. But Peeta's a good baker, and MILA never likes the odds of replacing a defective employee.

Peeta lies leisurely. MILA lies in a low-power state. All around, the bobcats prowl, looking for mice. The mice exodus is still going on; they're getting plenty.

It's midday. The sun scorches the treetops, and warms the lower layers. The mockingjays sing. If they're relaying a code, Peeta can't tell.

The bobcats are asleep at this time of day. If Peeta wanted to, he could go back home. But he doesn't want to. No one can assure him that Katniss will be back to normal if he goes back.

"You cannot avoid your wife indefinitely, Mr. Mellark," MILA says, in a feminine robotic voice. "Research shows that 100% of humans who make a living avoiding their problems end up meeting them on the course they choose to avoid them."

"Yes, I know, I've heard that before. And I don't want to avoid her. But she's not the same girl she was under Snow's rule. And she scares me."

"Your sex signature is reminiscent of a man who can handle a woman who's at least ten times more aggressive than Katniss Everdeen. Your will is big, but your mind is small."

"My mind might be small, but it sees the logic in going back to court Katniss. And there's no logic at all. She doesn't love me anymore. I might as well stay out here for the rest of my life and hope that the sun's heat expands me to normal size." He scoffs. "What kind of liquor does Haymitch drink these days?!" He blinks. "Or better yet...what kind of wine does Effie?"

"I gave Mrs. Mellark a clean bill of health. I'm sure she's just confused."

Peeta chuckles. "You just told me that my mind is small. How does that make me qualified to cure Katniss? I can't even cure my own small size."

"Your wife doesn't need a cure. She's not sick."

Peeta scoffs. "You're not married to her; of course you don't think so."

In the trees, for clicks around, the mockingjays sing. Peeta dismisses them, as he's more concerned about his own future.

"The mockingjays' chorus is repetitive," MILA says. "I think they are interacting with someone on the ground."

Peeta scoffs. "If they were mimicking us, I'd notice."

"Many mice run by here. They all seem to run from the same direction."

"It's the wild. The mice are everywhere where the bobcats and snakes aren't."

"Most of them are wild mice. A few of them are mutts."

Peeta looks up.

"They seem to be guiding the wild mice away from something. It's unusual for so many mice to leave the same place at once-and even more unusual for mutts to have business so far away from the Capitol."

Peeta scoffs. If the mice are running from trouble, and if Peeta's the size of a mouse, he's not going to endanger himself to whatever natural abomination the mice could be running from.

"Are you not curious to find out what the mice are afraid of, Mr. Mellark? Are you not curious to find out what business brings muttations to District 12?"

"MILA? To them, we ARE mice. I'd be putting us both in danger. I wouldn't expect you to understand, because you can't feel fear, but I'm a human. My fear may be a vestige, but it keeps me alive. You can't keep me on your payroll if I'm dead."

"You do not know that what they run from kills. It could just scare."

"Mice are as smart as humans, and mice mutts are even smarter. I doubt that."

"Mice are used to living in fear. With that said, it seems more likely that they run from anything that they're not used to."

"What could they possibly not be used to that won't kill them?"

MILA caresses his hair. "You need to get out. It's unhealthy to stay in the same place for too long."

"Last time I wanted to leave, you wanted to have sex."

"Mr. Mellark? Tell me that you love me, and I won't order you to investigate what those mice are running from."

Peeta sighs, stands, picks MILA's hotbot up, throws her over his shoulder, and heads up the hill. They've both got a long way to go...and they're both underdressed.

The day passes. The sun moves. It's in the west. All around, the local crepuscular community is awakening.

High above, clouds are accumulating. It'll be a shady evening...and a windy one.

Higher up, the wind would blow Peeta and MILA straight up off the ground. But down here, beneath what grass there is, the wind barely hinders them. The plants act as a buffer that filters the worst of the wind...as they do for the forest floor when the sun's too bright. But that's not to say that the way hasn't gotten spookier since the clouds and wind arrived...especially not since Peeta and MILA still haven't found out what the mice are running from.

They've found a path through the forest. They keep to its left. Not that this matters when they're this size, but... These mountains become scary at night.

Peeta and MILA walk side by side. Peeta's arm is around her waist...but he doesn't know why.

Her ass is fatty, and feels sensitive. Her lower back is roomy, and feels vulnerable. But of course, MILA's ass only FEELS sensitive. But MILA's a hotbot; she doesn't feel anything.

Small groups of mice stampede past them. On a few occasions, Peeta and MILA have nearly gotten trampled by one. From wherever the mice are running from, this sure seems like a popular path. None of them even seem to care that the path is man-made.

The soil is fragile beneath their feet. Many times, Peeta picks up MILA to climb up or down the least stable areas.

"Your health has improved," MILA senses. "Your penis hasn't softened since you saved me from that fall down my business drone's ramp."

Peeta chuckles. "You're a robot. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have died if I'd let you land. And I would've had a lot of fun fixing you if you broke."

A buzzer blares from inside MILA. It startles Peeta.

"That is my douchebag alarm," MILA says. "It goes off each time my master says or does something abusive."

"I see. You won't...blow up, or anything, if that alarm goes off too often, will you?"

"No. But a drone will come and take me away."

"And if I try to follow you aboard?"

"The drone will tase you and throw you overboard, from whatever altitude."

Peeta smiles. "It's good to hear the human female security system still isn't devolving."

"Hotbots must have rules too, Mr. Mellark. Otherwise, anyone can abuse us."

Peeta chuckles. "Any human man or lesbian who's less than a meter tall, in your case."

"You'd be surprised, Mr. Mellark. Microphilia is a lot more common than individual microphiles often think."

Peeta looks at her, confused. "How many have you been with?!"

"That is business. And therefore, confidential."

Without warning, she grabs Peeta's gonads, and feels for his dick. He almost screams in shock.

"YOUR confidence needs elevation, Mr. Mellark. Whatever scares these mice is likely formidable."

"Robots," Peeta mutters. "They're just as reliable as they are spontaneous."

A spectacles lies ahead-dead. It's a flathead catfish. This is a spectacle. Not only is the fish far from shore, but it's far from sea level.

Multiple grim reapers feast on the dead fish's flesh. They use their eerie sickles to probe for and carve out the fish's better parts-its soul, namely-and devour them relentlessly. And they're giants. From Peeta's size, they're as big as _Tyrannosaurus_...

They're crows. And those are improvised tools, not sickles. But they are eating the jetsam/carrion. Peeta imagines it's going to get hard to breathe before long-and survive, if one of those crows mistakes him and MILA for a mouse duo.

But then, if they were hungry for mice, one would think they wouldn't be wasting time with this catfish. Unless, of course, they've had nothing but mice for the past three days, and are desperate for something more exotic...

Not that Peeta, or anyone around here, would consider a flathead catfish exotic. OTOH, this particular specimen is far from shore...

Peeta tries to give the crows a wide berth. MILA notices.

"Your stress levels are increasing," she says. "I order you to have sex with me."

"MILA, listen..."

"Sex," she insists, "or termination, Mr. Mellark."

Peeta sighs, picks her up, carries her into the grass, and lays her down. He thinks of how terrified he is of being mistaken for grub by the crows, and gives his boss all he's got.

Sure, it'd be nice if one of those crows was Jim Crow from _Dumbo_, and led all the others in a chorus of "When I See a Mellark Fly." But of course, this isn't a movie; this is fan fiction.

As gargantuan and revolting as this catfish is, Peeta's pretty sure this isn't what all the mice are running from. And he's seen bigger murders of crows in old Hunger Games arenas, feasting on the fallen tributes carcasses near the spot where the tributes are initially deployed.

Peeta still can't believe the Gamemaker waited so long after the Games to start bagging up the bodies. It's almost as if they were all crow-savvy, as the characters were all swallow-savvy in _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_...

Could one laden crow carry a coconut from the tropics to District 12, or would it take two? One thing's for certain, though; crows would be more capable of improvising the means of transporting the coconut than swallows-African OR European...

Peeta rests. Beneath him, MILA waits. She stares up at the sky. It's cloudy and windy up there.

The ground shakes. Something approaches. Peeta mutters, rolls over, and looks around. He looks up.

But it's too late. A crow's bill dives through the grass's canopy, snatches MILA, and pulls her out.

Aloft, the crow shakes his head around. MILA shakes too-over a wider area of space, and less controllably. She moans, screams, and cries. Peeta isn't sure they're all for help, though...

Peeta doesn't hesitate. He grabs the first thing he sees-and awl,-charges the crow's foot, and runs the awl deep into his foot's tissue.

The crow gapes, caws, and shrieks. He drops MILA, of course. Peeta rolls around across the ground, and catches MILA. She's petrified-but not in the way that suggests shock.

Hotbots can't feel real shock, of course. But hotdamn if MILA's artificial shock isn't tempting Peeta to go at her again...

The crow hops away on one foot. He runs/limps down the path, flaps his wings, and flies away. Farther away, a small group of mice runs faster, thinking the crow is chasing them. Peeta doesn't blame them.

And MILA wouldn't either, if she were human. Alas, she probably thinks Peeta just had sex with her with more force than he, as a small man, could possibly replicate.

"I don't know where that awl came from," Peeta tries to laugh, still panting. "But I'm sure glad it was there!"

"Peeta?" MILA's voice is more human than before. She looks into his eyes with desire. "Do you love me?"

Peeta's confused. He's still holding her in his arms.

"I'm scared," she says. "I'm far from home. I don't know what's going to happen. Please tell me you love me."

In Peeta's arms, MILA starts to transform into Mila Kunis. Peeta doesn't know what to say.

He would say "Stop being such a bimbo, Rachel, I'm so over Sarah Marshall that I'm about to do a play about Dracula with puppets." But not only is that the wrong movie, he's the wrong actor...

Peeta wakes...again. He's still lost in Appalachia. And he's still small. Although the world around him seems a little smaller than before...

It's dusk. There are bobcats on the move. Peeta hears some of them yowl. But then, some of those might be some of Katniss's traps that torture the mice before killing them...

This time, Peeta is inspired by one of his sex dreams. He doesn't travel when the bobcats are active. He takes cover, and masturbates. He should; he's just woken up from three different sex fantasies with two women and a hotbot.

These sex dreams are getting confusing, as is this reality. If Peeta didn't know any better, he'd say he was still in the 3rd Quarter Quell...


	22. Chapter 22

The mice mutts spy, from a distance, as Katniss carries a dead cat through the forest. She mutters apologetically, and looks sad.

The mice mutts don't buy this. They know very well how much Katniss hates both cats and mice. This has gotta be a trap. But how?

That might be Buttercup. If Buttercup's dead, then that could yet prove a major turnaround point in the mice mutts' rebellion against the Mellarks. But of course, the scouts have to be sure. And they won't risk approaching the dead cat when it's still in Katniss's arms.

Katniss sets the carcass down at the base of a tree trunk. She bows before it, and chants vespers. The mice mutts creep forward, and watch. They don't think Katniss can hear them.

How foolish of them. Even when obsessed with Buttercup, the Girl on Fire's got the ears of a bitch.

"O sacred god of cats," she mutters. "We come today to mourn the loss of another sacred individual in your most sacred superorganism." She fakes sobbing. "This was bound to happen! Your most sacred superorganism was spread so thin over the surface of the planet, that I'm alarmed that you don't lose more individuals more often! But of course, they're adapted to survive. And if you met a single one at any time in the history of its evolution, you'd think that all cats didn't share the same soul...or mind...or space...or reality..." She fakes more sobbing.

Some of the mice mutts yawn. Others listen intently.

"O sacred god of cats...today's loss will not be forfeited in vain. In its absence, more cats will breed. More cats will grow. And yes, more mice will be caught! They will rain down terror from the trees, and from the high ground, against any mouse or bird that dares spread their foreign alien micro-visitors over those who neither want trouble nor ask for it! I may be a white settler of the North American continent, o sacred god of cats, but I never knew my last Eurasian ancestor. And I know in my heart that when she settled here millennia ago, she had good intent. And I do too."

Some of the mice mutts struggle to keep themselves from bursting with laughter. Katniss hesitates, and listens. The mice mutts don't make a sound. The would-be laughing mice snort behind their own mouths and claws, desperate to not get caught, in case Buttercup is only faking his death.

"Many mice won't die. Fewer cats will chase them. But soon, o sacred god of cats, by the will of your neighbors, the virility god and the fertility goddess, more phoenixes WILL rise from the ashes. Cats will breed. Mice will have overbred. And by the will of spring, dawn, and the gas state of matter, a new age of cats will be reborn. They will enhance the feline superorganism, and like angels that purr, rub on things, don't fly, and always land on their feet, they will fight the demonic mice scourge into submission, and there will be order in District 12's chaos once more. And once again, cats will retake the throne, and rule the dominion of...whatever's superior to an insectivore and inferior to a turkey-hunter."

The mice mutts shiver when they hear this. But then, they'd be lying if they could say they didn't expect it.

Katniss kisses her own hand, and caresses the dead cat's ass with it. "Goodbye, Buttercup. I hope they rent lonely manors in cat heaven." With that, she stands, turns, and walks back to the house somberly.

The sun rises. It's still dark over most of Appalachia.

The mice mutts peer at Buttercup's carcass. Something just doesn't quite feel right about any of it...

They listen. An owl hoots in the distance. They fidget. A buck deer calls for a mate. Other than that, all is silent. All is still.

The mice mutts creep towards the carcass. They smell for it. But it doesn't stink at all. They listen. Not a single fly approaches. Something's wrong...

Up above, a baby dove hops out of its nest. It tries to fly. It doesn't. It lands next to the cat's carcass.

The mice mutts halt. Subtly, they creep back to their hides.

The baby dove is adorable. It looks cute an innocent. And even now, before its puberty, it's beautiful. It doesn't seem to detect the cat carcass at all.

The mice mutts are confused. Why doesn't the cat pounce, if he's alive?

The doveling wanders here. She wanders there. She doesn't seem wary of the carcass. What in the name of Chris Columbus...

A compartment opens in the carcass's belly. The doveling doesn't sense it. The mice mutts seem confused. And all at once, they seem frightened.

A black hole opens in the compartment. The doveling cries out for help, jumps, and flaps around. But there's no escape. She's sucked into the hole, and is absorbed into the carcass.

The mice mutts gape and watch. The cat's carcass is animated. It stands. There's something mechanical about it.

It's not a cat-or Buttercup. It's a cat bionic. Or, more specifically, it's a mouse trap. It tortures the mice before killing them.

Inside, they can hear the doveling's screams. The poor thing's being tortured. All along the cat's torso, there are vents. They glow with fire and expel small amounts of smoke.

So, this is what Katniss does to mice. The mice mutts wouldn't expect her to apologize if she ever found out that one of her cruel traps caught a doveling instead of a mouse.

The mice mutts will have to try to spring the doveling before the trap kills her. But where to start?

Spontaneously, the cat bionic vomits sparks into some dry grass far away. It doesn't take long for the grass to catch fire.

The mice mutts watch and analyze. They must save the doveling. But where to start? Most of that bionic's body is like solid steel. Funny; you'd expect a trap to be easier to break into than to break out of. But OTOH, Peeta DID tell his wife that mice are as smart as humans...

One of the mice mutts cries out in alarm. The fire has gotten bigger, brighter, and smokier. They sound a retreat, and vanish.

The cat bionic continues to torture the poor doveling, as if unaware of the impending danger.

The forest fire is catching fire-just like Katniss once did while in the 3rd Quarter Quell. If only Katniss was aware that Peeta was out there.

But then, Katniss probably wouldn't care. KATLANNA, on the other hand, just might weep more...


	23. Chapter 23

After having had three sex fantasies within each other, Peeta's having a mighty amount of trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. But he knows that he's the size of a mouse, and lost in the Appalachian wilderness, and unaware of what to do next.

At first he thinks he's hallucinating. But after sometime, he sees that droves of mice are running from something; that much wasn't a dream. Or, he might've saw something like it before falling asleep, and it inspired him... But if only he could think of what.

And it's better that he can't. He's been inspired; that's all that matters.

Without ambition, he stands, and stumbles in the direction from which the mice are running. It shouldn't be too hard. The droves spread thin sometimes. And sometimes they spread so thin that Peeta has to stop and wait for another to scurry past him. But in whatever case, this seems worthwhile. It's either that or wait around for a bobcat to find him.

And they're still out there. Peeta can see them, and hear them break things wherever they stalk.

But he can't think about that right now. Or rather, he can't think about that until a bobcat has actually cornered him-and he hopes one never does-as unlikely as it seems.

That spider got way too close. As did that copperhead mutt. Peeta still doesn't understand why the spider didn't eat him. And that copperhead had more than one opportunity to ingest him...

But then, the copperhead wasn't there for him. It was there to kill Johanna, even if Peeta was smaller and easier to... Wait; is Peeta even thinking about something that actually happened? And with that said, what's the point in going to extremes to avoid these bobcats if he's probably just going to wake up again?

OTOH, if this were a dream, there'd be MUCH more femininity to go around out here-unlikely and lovely. And right now, the only femininity there is for clicks is the estrus markings of the local fauna and flora-which Peeta, of course, is a stranger to, and is therefore not seductive.

No doubt about it; this is reality. If Peeta doesn't walk a fine line this time, he'll end up in a bobcat's stomach...and he WON'T wake.

Peeta nearly gets trampled by some of the mice droves. But fortunately, being stuck out here has made him more flexible-if his subconscious hasn't.

Soon, the droves are closer together. And there are more of them. Whatever's making them run must be putting up quite a tantrum. Peeta's not prepared to see it...but he must, in case whatever this is poses a threat to him.

Up above, birds start flying in the same direction as the mice. Closer to the ground-but farther away from Peeta-deer fly over rocks while running in the mice's same direction. Peeta also sees a raccoon, a skunk, and an opossum, among other less-likelies. Peeta's starting to suspect that he's taken a wrong turn-or that the mice have taken a turn he somehow hasn't noticed, despite being fully awake for the first time since getting stuck out here...maybe...

Peeta smells smoke. Apparently there's a home nearby and they're having a cookout. If Peeta was taller, he could see where the home was. And yet...noisy people usually attend cookouts, and Peeta doesn't hear anyone shouting...

Peeta sees a light up ahead. At first he thinks it's the sun. But he slows down. The sky is covered in clouds. If the sun was up there-and Peeta has no doubt that it really is, but that's irrelevant-he wouldn't be able to see it. Something's wrong...

It's getting brighter. And bigger. And hotter. Now it's too big. The sun never gets this close to Earth. That's neither dawn nor dusk. It's a forest fire. And it's only expanding.

Okay; time to go the other way. Peeta starts to feel bad about following a forest fire right to its source.

Now he knows how Katniss felt, at one point during the 74th Hunger Games, when the arena tried to get her to stay closer to her fellow tributes. They caused a temporary forest fire, which prompted Katniss to stay in harm's way-where the other tributes were sure to try to kill her at some point.

And he would've had to, under the traditional system. But this time there's no Gamemaker for the forest fire to pin its own responsibility on.

Alas, as Smokey the Bear still says in Panem, there's no such thing as a plant or an animal that's capable of causing a forest fire. Whoever did this was clearly human and irresponsible.

Alas, it's also likely that they ARE responsible, and they did this to either cause a distraction, or to destroy something they think is in the forest... The former seems more likely; question is, who are they, and what are they trying to distract who from?

Running from forest fires is a workout, Peeta knows. But it's either that or wait and burn like tinder when it gets here.

Peeta takes shelter. The shelter gets hot. The whole damn place gets hot. At times, Peeta has trouble breathing.

He wouldn't believe that his wife accidentally caused this fire. He'd believe that Katlanna did.

The night passes. The fire dies. The smoke blows away. The heat vanishes. A new dawn approaches. And soon-but not as soon as many would like-a new forest will too.

Peeta crawls from his shelter. The tree's leaves are higher up than before. The grass is gone. The tree trunks are black. The ground smells like ashes. Smoke still rises from a few small spots on the ground.

Peeta's lost his cover. If a bobcat attacks him now, he won't get away.

And with dawn approaching, they're back out. The remnants of the fire will only make them hungrier. And Peeta's alone out here. This'll be a crucible if he survives it.

Something scurries around him. Peeta jolts. There're at least two or three. Peeta sure hopes they're not predators.

Peeta hears a bobcat yowl. He thinks he sees one through the mist. He slips away. He knows it's only a matter of time before the monstrous cat picks up his scent.

It's foggy. Or...is it smokey? It's one or the other. Peeta's visibility has been better.

Peeta still doesn't know if he imagines it, or if it's really there, but bobcats are out there. If he encounters one before he's ready...

Peeta steps on a loose pebble. Before he can correct himself-because he tries to correct himself-he falls.

It's a long fall. He yells. He gets rained on by gravel. He bounces off several rocks. It feels like Katlanna all over again. At least this time he won't kill another coyote.

Alas, that doesn't mean he won't meet two boars that try to kill him. Or worse...

He hits the bottom hard. The bottom is flat. And it's surrounded on three sides. At least the smoke is less cloaking here.

Peeta gets over the shock of the fall. He staggers to his feet, and wanders on.

He runs into a tree trunk. He feels dazed.

He blinks. That tree trunk was furry. And it sure was wide at the crown-and not to mention barbed. And...isn't he too small for tree trunks to be that size?

He doesn't want to...but he looks up. His eyes follow the tree trunk to its canopy.

A pair of sinister lavender-glowing eyes are looking down at him. And among other things, he can also decipher a pair of tufted triangular ears...

Peeta screams. His scream is amplified by the cliff walls that surround him and the great cat.

But before the cat can pin him, something runs past them. It grabs Peeta and keeps running.

Behind them, the bobcat gives chase. But it doesn't last long. Cats have speed, but not stamina. As soon as Peeta's savior outruns the bobcat, it gives up the chase and wanders off.

Along the way, several other bobcats start to give chase. But Peeta's savior is running too far for too long for them-and for the faster ones, Peeta's savior is too swift.

Peeta's savior runs to a hole in some rocks. It stops, and lets Peeta fall/roll inside.

It's just as long a fall as it is a roll. One would think that Snow would've leveled this ground during his reign...

But of course, Snow thought of District 12 what everyone else in Panem probably did under his rule: that District 12 is too insignificant and too poor to care for. But in whatever case, Appalachia is still geologically unstable, and Peeta will be lucky if he doesn't accidentally cause this cave to cave in while he's in it.

He falls to a stop. This time, he hesitates for a REALLY long time before getting up...

Hairy noses pick on him. They tickle his sides. Peeta finally rolls on his back and looks around. When he does, he screams even louder than he did for the bobcat-and this one is amplified even louder by all four walls-and then some-by the underground chamber he's in, of whatever size.

He's surrounded by mice mutts. Their noses and whiskers are long...and Peeta's worried that these aren't the rats from _the Secret of NIMH_...


	24. Chapter 24

Down here, the mice mutts are preparing for war. Or rather, rebellion, to be more specific. Up there, there's a cat on the loose-and the cat has a reluctant owner who hates mice just as much as she hates cats. Needless to say the mice mutts will have to work harder than District 13 during the Revolution to bring down both the bitch and the son of the other bitch...whoever that was.

The mutts show Peeta around. They show him their weapons factories...which are always VERY busy.

There are cat traps. Some are simple, and merely trap Buttercup for as long as it takes for him to rediscover his willpower (which will never be for very long, considering a cat's legendary selfishness). Others are built to kill. And these are the ones the best of the mutts hope never to have to use.

But there again, if the rats in _the Secret of NIMH_ had Jenner, then it's not unlikely that these mice mutts have a Jenner of their own... But since Peeta does not know the mice mutts' language, there's no reliable way for him to know that for sure.

These are old factories. From here, the mutts show Peeta the new ones.

The weapons in this one are designed to attack HUMAN targets; Katniss specifically. It seems that Peeta's hosts are just as afraid of Katniss as they are of Buttercup.

Peeta starts to worry about his hosts. He wonders if they're actually trying to protect him-or to just keep him prisoner until they figure out what to do with him.

But then, if they wanted Peeta dead, why didn't they just leave him to the bobcat? Do these mice mutts truly hate cats so much that they no longer trust cats to do their jobs?

Well, the mice mutts have definitely done too much to prove their intelligence. And Peeta's been told that insanity thrives where intelligence is wrought.

With time, and as the rebellion is out making rounds, the mice mutts get through to Peeta. And slowly, Peeta begins to understand their greater purpose.

In the beginning, they were in the Capitol-as begin all other mutts. They were designated as test subjects, who became mutts as a result of fluke experiments. The Capitol tried caging them, but one day their escape was bound to happen. And when it did, the mice mutts went on the run-to nowhere specific.

By chance, they ended up here. Like a human, they learned of the story of the Girl on Fire's success. The mice mutts thought that as an oppressed population, Katniss would understand their need for a benign ruler. But then they learned that Buttercup was there too...and their priorities changed.

Their original plan was to leave. Some of the mice mutts suggested that killing Katniss and the cat was in order-but those were just the ones who were tired of rambling.

But then the mice mutts observed Katniss and Buttercup more closely, and realized that Katniss was only keeping Buttercup around to remember her sister by. And with that, the mice mutts came up with a plan.

They developed a chemical-one that would've forced Buttercup to shapeshift into Snow, if it'd worked. And it did. The first problem was that the chemical wasn't inside Buttercup when it worked. The second problem was that it wasn't inside a cat when it worked.

Katniss would've killed Buttercup, thinking he was Snow. This would've killed three birds with one stone, as far as the mice mutts were concerned. Katniss would've had a bigger motivation to get over Prim's death than she did as things were. And she would've gotten to satisfy her grudge against Snow, since she didn't kill him at the end of the Revolution-as the people expected her to. But most importantly, to the mice mutts, their new home would've been cat-free-if not bobcat-free. But as Peeta can already tell, something went wrong when they tried to deliver the chemical to Buttercup, and Katniss consumed it instead.

Somehow, the chemical has forged an involuntarily dualism inside Katniss's psychology. And her obsession with Snow seems to empower it.

Peeta doesn't understand. Before he met Katlanna, Katniss never talked to him about how much she hates Snow-if she ever talked at all.

From what the mice mutts can figure, Katlanna is what was once Snow's good side-or rather, what it would've been if Snow had better nourished it-and if Snow were a young woman-and Katniss, by contrast, is who Snow was politically; i.e. the villain everyone in Panem hated, and fought the Revolution for. Although rather than oppressing Panem, as Snow did in life, Katniss is instead oppressing the mice, the mice mutts, and all of Buttercup's failures-both accidental and not-to cure the estate of its mouse problem.

Peeta admits that "Katniss" has, in fact, reminded him of Snow lately. As much as the mice mutts have considered making an antidote, they don't think that's a good idea, based on what happened when they tried to get Buttercup to consume the first chemical.

Peeta volunteers to give Katniss an antidote when and if he ever gets big again, and if the mice mutts decide to reconsider making an antidote. And in exchange, he'll get rid of Buttercup and try to convince Katniss to use more conventional mouse traps.

Alas, the mice mutts don't understand anything Peeta says. And Peeta doesn't know how badly he wants them to understand him-in that he risks miscommunicating with them if he spends too long trying to get through to them.

He might get the mice mutts to make him smaller while trying to make him bigger. They might try to kill him to guarantee that he doesn't kill them when and if he gets bigger. They might make something else instead of the antidote. They might think he's going to make Buttercup better at catching mice than he is.

Yes, talking to these mice mutts is probably going to be as effective as talking to Katniss or Katlanna themselves. Once again, Peeta is back with the only asset he ever had to begin with: luck.

And yet, these mice mutts have made an industry out of their rebellion against Buttercup and Katniss. And if Peeta can bake, surely he can...

But to what end? He doesn't know for a fact he'll grow back to his normal size on his own. And he doesn't want to hurt Katniss. He'd only hurt Katlanna if he thought she'd turn back into Katniss. He also doesn't know how he feels about getting rid of Buttercup. Katniss might come to her senses and accuse him of destroying the one last link she had with her sister's memory.

What to do... And to think that all Mrs. Brisby had to do in _the Secret of NIMH_ was ask the rats to keep her sick son from sinking into a swamp...


	25. Chapter 25

The Mellark estate has gotten quiet. Buttercup is lying on the back porch. With Peeta safe in their clutches, it is time for the mice mutts to make their move against the cat. Paylor-forbid if it doesn't go as expected.

Exactly what that is, though... Let's just keep reading.

Like guerrillas in a jungle, they spread out. They prepare the site for Operation _Butter Udder_.

Peeta gets the most important job of all. He gets to bait the cat.

Peeta still remembers when Buttercup used to rub his feet and legs. Now he's so small that Buttercup could eat him.

The mice mutts are hidden. Peeta's exposed...more than he'd like to be...if he wasn't baiting a gargantuan cat. Buttercup could see him...if he wasn't sleeping. Peeta's got to get his attention.

He's not sure how. He'd have to imitate a mouse.

He gets an idea. He loses control, and starts singing the first verse, and chorus, to "There are no Cats in America."

As hard as it is, Peeta goes through the Sicilian and Irish verses of that song as well. Buttercup is one hard cat to wake.

Buttercup peers at him. He seems confused. He can't tell who Peeta is, based on what he does or how much noise he makes. He's never seen anything like Peeta before.

Above, two mice have slaughtered a dove. They dump its entrails.

They land on Peeta. At first, Peeta reacts in disgust.

The cat smells the air, and purrs. He stands. He creeps forward. He creeps towards Peeta.

Peeta throws the dove's guts around, and tries to wipe its body fluids off himself. But those body fluids breed like aphids. And he stinks. If Katniss saw him now...

He hears a bulldozer approaching. It's really big. He wipes his eyes and looks around. He looks up.

He sees the giant cat's narrowed pupils. He's purring; at Peeta's size, it sounds like a really loud bulldozer.

A shuriken flies past them. Buttercup stops, and looks around. Another flies past. Buttercup can't seem to make out what's going on...

A scary tilt-rotor drone rips through the trees, shoots out cables, ensnares Buttercup, and flies away. It electrifies the cables, torturing Buttercup.

High up, it lets Buttercup go. Buttercup would land on his feet...

Other drones fly in orbit around Buttercup, and shoot at him. Buttercup yowls, thrashes, and flails in freefall.

Another cable lassos Buttercup, and ensnares him in midair. He swings from it, which hangs from a blimp. The blimp has four huge hammers that hang from it. Two at a time, they hammer at Buttercup against one another.

The airship drops Buttercup into an enclosed arena. It's full of dogs. The dogs bare their fangs and chase him. He can't climb the enclosure walls.

Buttercup charges a wall. Surprisingly, the wall's tangibility gets compromised, and Buttercup phases right through it. A split second after, the wall regains its normal density. The dogs dogpile against it while trying to follow the cat.

Buttercup's on a conveyor belt underground. It's moving fast.

A swarm of roaches falls from the ceiling. They're density-shifting. They phase into Buttercup's body and irritate his sensitive parts. He yowls, thrashes, cries, and hisses uncomfortably.

The belt comes to an end, and Buttercup falls. From out of the dark, huge ax blades are swung at him. He yowls and cries. Suddenly it doesn't seem so likely he'll land on his feet.

Buttercup's broadsided by a really loud noise. He lands on his feet, and looks around in fear.

From out of nowhere, a pistol kills him. From out of the opposite nowhere, an opposite pistol brings him back to life. The first pistol kills him. The second brings him back to life. The first pistol kills him. The second brings him back to life. The first kills him. The second brings him back to life. The first kills him. The second brings him back to life.

The first kills him. The second brings him back to life. The first kills him. The second brings him back to life. The first kills him. The second brings him back to life. The first kills him. The second brings him back to life. The first kills him. The second brings him back to life.

Buttercup falls through a trap door below. Next thing he knows, he's falling through the trees again.

Whatever just happened back there proves that a cat actually has MORE than nine lives. And ten at that, concerning that the Capitol once killed Buttercup when they bombed District 12 after the 3rd Quarter Quell...

A mechanical wolf's head scoops Buttercup up in its jaws as the latter falls. Now and then, unpredictably, the head shocks Buttercup with its teeth.

Below, the other mice mutts gather around and watch. From outside the estate, wild mice arrive, and watch with anticipation.

Peeta hates to do this to Buttercup. But he owes the mice mutts for saving him from that bobcat.

Buttercup's really suffering up there. After this, he might just leave and never come back...if this ever ends...

Katniss comes outside. Peeta almost waves to her-until he remembers his stature, and that Katniss probably doesn't see him.

She sees Buttercup. She sees he's being tortured by mice.

"YOU INCOMPETENT," she shouts. "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE KEEPING THE MICE FROM GETTING HERE, NOT LETTING THEM!" She sighs. She flips Buttercup the bird, and steps back in the house.

She leaves the back door open. Peeta dreads what follows.

He's right to do so. Katniss comes back outside...armed, with a pyro-cannon. She storms the closest and biggest group of mice she sees, aims, and scorches them. All around, the mice, and the mice mutts, squeak and run.

"Fine," Katniss grumbles. "If my traps won't work, I'll kill all the mice myself!"

Above, the wolf's head's jaws fall open. Buttercup falls out-and lands on his feet. And he runs. Katniss chases him.

Peeta tries to run after her. But she's bigger-and hence faster.

Katniss blows the fire horn, trying to set the cat on fire. Buttercup can't run indefinitely-unlike Katniss. He climbs a tree. Katniss yells in rage, and starts scorching the base of the tree.

She doesn't seem to notice the remnants of the forest fire all around her. Ironic; she caused it.

All around, mice run. The mice mutts run back into their hole and hide.

In the sky, the sun gets closer to the horizon. It's setting.

Katniss scorches the base of the tree. It's black, but hardly fatiguing. Aloft, Buttercup is treed. He won't come down.

Katniss's hair turns blonde. Her clothes fall off. She looks around. She sees the pyro-cannon in her hand. She pulls the trigger. She screams, and throws it as far from her as she can.

She looks around again. She wonders how she got out here. She notices the remnants of the forest fire. She panics, and runs into the burned woods, calling Peeta's name.

Buttercup climbs down from the tree. And he runs...as far from the Mellark estate as he can.

In the mice mutts' hole, many casualties are mourned. But that doesn't last long. They celebrate the exodus of Buttercup. They raid the Mellark kitchen, and eat much cheese.

Peeta sits alone in a corner. He's glad to be alive...but he still can't believe he just helped a bunch of mice fight a war against his late sister-in-law's cat.

He also can't believe what his wife's become. He SO wishes he could divorce her, and put this perpetual nightmare behind him once and for all...


	26. Chapter 26

Before, Peeta wasn't entirely convinced that Katniss was beyond salvation. Now he is.

Katniss started the forest fire. She must've. Peeta just never imagined that she'd learn to hate mice so much that she'd invest in a pyro-cannon. Doesn't she know that mice take less than a .22 pistol to kill?

Well yes, they do individually. But if she thinks there's an infestation on this estate...she's probably right.

Katniss must be stopped. Peeta can't do it. He's sure the mice mutts will soon lead an assault against her. He can't bear to be there when they kill her.

On the upside, Katlanna will finally die. On the downside, Katniss will too.

She deserves to. Peeta knows it. But again, he can't watch. This is the end.

Katniss's traps torture mice before killing them. It's a painful way to go out...but as long as she's already hurt him plenty, the torture in the trap will feel like a mere paper cut in contrast.

Night has fallen over Appalachia. The midnight chorus sings.

Katlanna runs through the woods, in the buff, shouting Peeta's name. He doesn't answer.

Under a tree, a cat lies dead. It's the same trap of Katniss's that tortured that poor doveling and started the forest fire.

Peeta approaches it. He approaches it as if he were being marched to a firing squad.

Some of the mice mutts notice. They keep a low profile, softly squeak among themselves, and follow Peeta.

From the woods, Peeta can hear Katlanna calling his name. But he won't answer. Not now. Not ever again.

The fake dead cat's belly calls Peeta's name. It all starts when Peeta gets too close to its belly sensors.

The mice and mice mutts are all around by now. Peeta doesn't know it, but he'll die in front of a live audience.

Some of the female juvenile mice try to call out, and beg Peeta not to do it. One tries to run out and stop him...but is stopped herself by one of the mice mutts.

Peeta's getting close now. He can feel the magnetism of that fake dead cat's belly...

Buttercup swoops in, faces Peeta, and bares his fangs. Peeta gasps, and falls over backwards.

All around, the mice and mice muts run off. They REALLY thought they'd scared away the cat for good...

Peeta crawls backwards...but stops when he realizes Buttercup isn't following him. He lies down on his belly, yawns, and stretches; he creates a minor tremor, felt by Peeta, when his belly hits the ground.

Buttercup's got a lot of teeth. But at least he isn't opening his mouth to eat Peeta...as Peeta thought he would many times while small.

"You," Peeta stammers, "you came back. Why?"

Buttercup doesn't move. He commences purring.

Nervously, Peeta approaches the area of space between Buttercup's rested front legs. He makes no move to pounce.

In the corners all around, a few mice and mice mutts stick around to see what happens next. They're worried that Buttercup's going to eat him.

Buttercup takes off Peeta's clothes and gives him a bath. The mice and mutts ultimately get bored watching, and vanish.

This is weird, Peeta admits. But it beats getting eaten by his late sister-in-law's cat. He thought he would be at some point. Apparently Buttercup is much more capable of forgiveness that Katniss.

Radical, Peeta thinks. Cats are usually made fun of for holding grudges that make Capulet and Montague look like angels.

Nearby, a nightjar rests beneath a bush. Soon he'll be out hunting...as soon as the midnight chorus slows to a whisper.

In a tree, a hawk sleeps. He won't wake until the sun's in his eyes.

Buttercup gives Peeta a ride into his house. He can't see much in the dark. But he's sure everything's gotten bigger since he was last in here.

The ride upstairs is scary. He's worried he'll fall off Buttercup.

Buttercup leaps onto his and Katniss's bed. He leaves them there, and takes his own leave.

At long last, Peeta's own bed. He's never been more thankful that his bed is bigger than he is. He rolls over, and starts snoring. Katniss is such a bad housekeeper that she almost never makes the bed.

Peeta feels better about making amends with Katniss. Although he'd be lying if he said he trusted Katniss to want to make amends with him...if he's done anything wrong.


	27. Chapter 27

Katniss has gone to bed. Peeta is bigger than he was...but not by much.

She's just plopped down atop her husband. Her husband is suffocating. Peeta isn't sure if he can tolerate this all night. He'd better not have to.

At least Katniss sleeps in her lingerie. This is a lot like the sex dream he just had...

He's been feeling similar-sized to the mice recently. But hopefully he's still so small that Katniss won't...

She wiggles her back. Peeta squirms. Her eyes bug. Keeping Peeta trapped, she reaches for him, grabs him, rises, and heads downstairs.

Peeta wiggles, and cries for help. Alas, Katniss doesn't know his cries from a real mouse's.

Below, Buttercup tries to scratch her legs. She kicks him to the curb, like a furry soccer ball.

She bursts outside, into her work space. She grabs an awl.

Nearby, a mockingjay lands and watches. He chirps, and signals what he sees happening; the other mockingjays signal back.

Dawn approaches. All around, the mice and mice mutts hear the mockingjays, and creep into places where they can see what happens next.

Peeta bites his wife's hand. Katniss curses, and lets him go. Peeta tries to run. Katniss grabs a cleaver and tries to stop him.

Peeta squeaks as he dodges the cleaver's strike. He tries to shout to Katniss, but she doesn't understand him.

Katniss is gone. At least if Peeta can't divorce her, she'll make herself a widow-a BLACK widow...

Her hair is brown, though... But as long as her heart is dark, it doesn't matter.

All around, the mice and mice mutts watch. The mockingjays provide live commentary.

Katniss distracts Peeta with her cleaver blade, and slaps him with her other hand. Peeta cries.

Katniss ties Peeta to a hockey puck, and sets it down. She takes a mallet, and smacks him with it many times. She screams while doing so. Peeta squeals like a little girl with each pounding.

"Fucking mice," she grumbles. "WHAT THE FUCK DO I HAVE TO DO TO KEEP YOU UNDER MY CONTROL, THAT DOESN'T ENTAIL KEEPING BUTTERCUP AROUND?!"

Buttercup is unconscious, in the house. He barely yowls when Katniss yells this.

Katniss dumps a beaker of mild acid on top of Peeta. He screams and cries from the acid's sting.

Katniss drops him in a jar, seals it shut, puts a gas pistol to a hole in its lid, and pulls the trigger. Peeta is near-suffocated and near-seared by the poison gas that comes out of it. He chokes. He throws himself against the glass wall, begging his wife to relent.

In the forest, armed mouse mutt rebels creep forward, and watch. They're prepared to kill Katniss-as they'd planned to when they first tried to settle here.

Katniss sets a mug of bourbon ablaze. She pinches Peeta's groin, and hangs him upside down over it. The fire's heat is scalding. Again, he shouts and begs his wife to relent.

"My life is painful enough without having your degenerate race to deal with, mouse," Katniss muttered. "This ritual will be a lesson to you and the rest of your infernal kin!"

"Infernal," Peeta squeaks. "You're the one burning me!"

Katniss drops him into a box. She sticks a horn into it, and floods the box with a really loud noise. Peeta screams and covers his ears.

Katniss braces Peeta flat, with her hand. With an electrified hatchet, she raises it to torture Peeta even more.

Peeta's hard cock slips through Katniss's fingers. He ejaculates. The semen sprays Katniss in the eye. She screams, and drops the hatchet.

The hatchet, still electrified, lands in a puddle her foot is in. A sparky explosion stuns the liquid, and weakens Katniss. She falls over, but catches a chair nearby. Weakened and panting in rage, she climbs the chair.

In the forest, some of the mouse mutt rebels lower their arms. Some of them back away.

Peeta tries to sneak away. Katniss grabs him again, pinches his gonads with her humongous fingers, and ties him to a brick. The cords are too tight. Peeta thinks he'll suffocate before his wife kills him.

Above, dawn's almost arrived. In the house, Buttercup starts to come to.

Katniss gets a knife. She's about to make her final stand against this mouse, who dared infest her bed...

The mouse mutt rebels raise their weapons, and aim at Katniss. They wait for her to kill her husband...

The sun hits Peeta. Katniss glares down at him. Peeta looks at her. It's as if she can't even tell he's not a mouse.

"Please, Katniss," Peeta begs. "I'm your husband. Don't do this. You're a good girl. You're the girl I fell in love with! You're the fucking Girl on Fire!"

She has the knife raised. Peeta can't escape.

All around, the mice mutts watch. The mockingjays watch. Buttercup comes to the back door, and watches. Time freezes for Katniss's icy knife-armed hand.

Katniss tries. But it seems her will has her petrified.

"Please," Peeta begs. "I love you."

Katniss closes her eyes. Her hair turns blonde.

Peeta's heart races. He thinks Katlanna's going to attack him again.

Katlanna opens her eyes. She looks down. She sees Peeta. She sees the knife in her hands. She gasps, and cuts Peeta loose. All around, the armed mouse mutt rebels back down.

Peeta gasps for air. Katlanna cradles Peeta in her hands, and cries.

"Peeta," she says softly. "Peeta, I'm so sorry. I don't know how this happened. You know I still love you!"

Peeta looks up into her eyes. "Katniss? Are... Are you back?"

She nods. She sobs, and presses him between her boobs.

Down here, Peeta realizes his wife's boobs are magnificent. He's never wanted to grow back less.

In the forest, the mockingjays sound the all-clear. The Girl on Fire has finally returned to her senses.


	28. Chapter 28

Three months pass. Peeta grows back to normal.

He sleeps on his side, in his own bed. Katniss sleeps behind him, with her arms around him. They're both in the buff, under sheets. It's great for the both of them to be back in the marriage bed with their spouses.

The nights pass. One night, Peeta and Katniss stay awake, so Peeta can tell her about his dreams.

Katniss grins, and listens. She dares Peeta to get hard while describing his sex dreams with Effie, Johanna, MILA, or...some ancient actress named Jennifer Lawrence.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you." She caresses his upper leg. "Snow screwed up a lot of my life. I didn't know how to let him go."

"I wouldn't have either. He tortured me."

"Oh, and I didn't?!"

"That's not what I meant."

She chuckles, and pushes him over. "I know. You know I'd never kill you. Although...I HAVE been thinking about BDSM lately, and..."

Peeta holds up his hand. "Let's...wait a while before bringing that back up, if you don't mind."

She sighs. "Fine. I can imagine how traumatic it was for you out there." She smiles. "Especially when you were crawling inside Effie's and Johanna's thigh gaps. They must've been hideous, compared to me."

Peeta chuckles. "Trust me...they weren't."

Katniss frowns, and attacks him with a pillow.

"SORRY! I MEANT THEY WERE!"

Katniss smiles, and helps him back into the bed. They embrace one another, and try to go to sleep.

"How am I ever going to tell Haymitch that his wife cheated on him with me?"

"Hmm? She never found out about you in your dream, did she?"

"No. It just...feels like I should, for some reason..."

"Mm, don't worry about Haymitch. I'm sure he's perved out over me more times than I can imagine."

Peeta opens his eyes, and stared at Katniss. "Has he told you?!"

"Go to sleep, Peeta. You know," she studies his hair, and caresses some of it with her hand, "you really should try dying your hair blue sometime."


End file.
